Reclaimed

by Marliss Melton

  Click-click. The sound of a round being chambered had him pulling the door shut to shield himself, only he was too slow. A burst of light preceded a brutal punch to his thigh. He doubled over, clutching his leg, and realized he’d been shot by a pistol with a silencer. The shooter lowered his gun as he came toward him, indicating to Connor that his objective had been to debilitate him, not to kill him—not yet, at least.

  Seizing him with a large hand, which Connor knew did not belong to Jameson, the shooter hauled him upright and slammed his back into the entryway wall where he knocked a picture off its nail. As the glass in the frame shattered, he heard Karen shout his name in fear.

  “Who are you?” Connor gasped, affecting surprise, while letting the HRT lead know that he was still alive.

  The suppressed pistol prodded his ribs as the assailant patted him down. Luckily, he missed the cell phone in the lining of Connor’s coat, but came away with the Glock at his ankle.

  Fuck, Connor thought, feeling doubly vulnerable without it and trying to gauge how badly he’d been shot. Blood gleamed darkly on his slacks; he felt it streaming down his leg.

  “Oh, you’ll see,” the stranger promised, as he grappled for control of Connor’s wrist. “You’d best cooperate if you want to see your pretty wife alive.”

  “Where is she?” Connor demanded.

  “Gimme your other hand and I’ll take you to her.”

  Every instinct screamed for him to resist as his wrists were cuffed before him. The man had obviously never been in law enforcement. But he was tall and powerful, a fit match for Connor on a good day. With pain radiating through his femur to his hip and up his spine, he could hardly stand upright, let alone overcome the brute. Cinching the cuffs tight, the assailant shoved him toward the hall and prodded him toward the master bedroom with the tip of his gun.

  As they passed the door to the basement, Connor took comfort in Gallway’s proximity. Jameson and his goon were well outnumbered. They would soon be apprehended. In the meantime, Connor’s sole objective was to keep Karen safe.

  He braced himself for what he’d see as the bedroom door swung open. A vision of her tied to the bed, stripped of her clothes, neck and shoulders bathed in blood, sparked a reckless rage within him. He headed toward Jameson with a roar.

  Only to draw up short as Jameson leveled his pistol at Karen’s head.

  Connor froze, his chest heaving with the effort it took not to rip Jameson’s head off. “You son-of-a-bitch!” he growled through clenched teeth.

  “Tut-tut-tut.” Jameson clicked his tongue in warning. “One false move and I’ll splatter her brains across the pillow.”

  “Connor!”

  He turned his attention to his wife. The garnet streaks of blood running from her neck to her shoulders looked to be dry, and she seemed to be breathing normally. His most immediate concern was shock, as her dilated eyes, usually a warm shade of chocolate brown, resembled black pools in her chalk-white face.

  “Hey,” he said, in an attempt to reassure her, “I brought the brandy. It’s right outside.”

  A flicker of relief shone in her eyes.

  “Well, isn’t this touching?” Jameson simpered. “Have a seat,” he added on a harder note. He sent the other man a nod, and Connor was seized from behind and dragged back into a desk chair they had evidently brought in from the den. With a grunt of pain, he caught himself and the chair from toppling over together.

  “So, you finally got me where you want me,” he grated, to keep the mobster talking. “I’m impressed.”

  Jameson smiled smugly at his accomplishment. “Did you ever doubt it? You took everything from me, Donovan—my bride, my wealth, my freedom. It’s time I returned the favor. Cubbins.” He glanced at the other man. “Secure his ankles so he can watch without being tempted to join in.”

  With a smirk of anticipation, Cubbins hunkered cautiously at Connor’s feet. In order to use both his hands, he’d tucked his gun into his waistband.

  Connor eyed Jameson’s pistol still at Karen’s head. His finger was crooked around the trigger, the safety was off, but Jameson didn’t plan on killing her yet. Raping the wives of their foes was one of the Centurion mob’s favorite MO’s. Connor couldn’t get across the room to protect her with his ankles bound to the chair.

  It was time to unleash HRT.

  “We should have a drink first,” he suggested, projecting his voice as he cued Gallway to make his move. “To celebrate your victory.”

  Jameson looked up at him, confused. In that same instant, a small canister rolled across the carpet from the direction of the open door. Connor kicked Cubbins onto his ass as the canister exploded. Startled, Jameson swung his pistol first toward the canister and then at Connor. But Connor had already leapt out of his seat. He took two steps to the bed and threw himself across Karen’s body, shielding her with his shoulders and arms as gunfire peppered the walls and ceiling.

  Jameson shrieked with a high-pitched scream that indicated to Connor he might’ve been shot. Cubbin’s silenced pistol gave a pop that was answered by a rat-tat and a heavy thud as Cubbins fell back to the floor.

  “Put your face on the ground!” Gallway shouted. Men bristling with weapons and covered in body armor swarmed into the room.

  Connor snuck a peek under his arm. Jameson rose up slowly from his knees, his pistol pointed at Connor’s broad back. Connor felt his blood congeal.

  This is it, then. He was going to die protecting Karen. Fine. He’d rather it happened that way than for Karen to take a bullet because of him.

  But, in the next instant, Jameson turned the gun on himself. “No,” he uttered in a faint voice. “I won’t let you take me again.”

  Pop! Gray matter sprayed suddenly from the far side of his head, and his body crumpled. Connor shut his eyes and looked away as relief and revulsion made his stomach roil.

  Now it was over. And he was, miraculously, still alive.

  Putting his elbows into the mattress, he eased his weight off Karen’s chest to look down at her. Her heart still thudded between the pillows of her breasts. Her shallow breaths fanned his neck. In her expanded pupils, he saw a tiny reflection of his own worried face. But then her eyes flooded with tears, and the image blurred.

  She tugged at the restrains that kept her arms over her head.

  “Sir, how bad are you hurt?” Kirk, Gallway’s medic, was leaning over the bed, trying to get a look at Karen. “How’s your wife?”

  Connor brushed off his concern. “I’m fine.” He didn’t want any man ogling his wife. “Cut these off me,” he said, showing the agent his bound wrists. “Thanks, now, give me your knife and find my wife a robe to wear. There should be one on the back of the bathroom door.”

  He glanced into Karen’s swimming eyes, again.

  “It’s over, sweetheart,” he said, working the blade between the plastic flexcuffs and the metal without cutting her. By the time he freed her wrists, Kirk was back with the robe. The room was still swarming with men. Connor took the offering and dragged it over Karen as he levered himself off her, groaning at the pain in his left thigh.

  Between helping her to cover herself and unknotting the tasseled cords that trapped her ankles, he didn’t spare a thought for his injury, until he tried to stand up.

  It felt like someone had taken the top off his head and sucked his brains out. Suddenly, he couldn’t feel his legs at all. All he felt was him falling and then blackness.

  Chapter Five

  Karen settled into the first class seat on the Boeing 747 flight to Athens and adjusted the seatbelt to fit her small frame. The aisle seat next to her window seat stood empty. Good. She wasn’t in the mood for small talk. In fact, she wasn’t in the mood for anything at all, besides sleeping and sulking and wondering when and how she was going to rally from her depression.

  The night of the incident, as she’d come to think of the horrific minutes she was held prisoner, she had seen all the emotion in Connor’s eyes that she’d missed during the
ir long, rocky marriage, and she’d assumed it meant that they would reconcile. So the moment her doctor had released her, with twelve stitches in her neck, she’d located Connor’s room in the same hospital, eager to share the words left unspoken between them and to thank him for being her hero.

  She’d found him lying in bed, combating waves of agony because, stubborn man that he was, he’d refused any painkillers.

  Luckily, the bullet that felled him had gone straight through his leg, tearing into muscle but missing both arteries and bone. She’d reached for his hand, not just to offer her sympathy but also to convey her gratitude and even her love. But she’d realized when he’d failed to squeeze her hand in return that whatever emotions she’d glimpsed earlier that night had already retreated.

  Her heart contracted with hurt as she recalled their ensuing conversation.

  “I just…I just wanted to thank you,” she’d choked out.

  He’d glanced at her, startled by her words. His gaze had touched on the white bandage at her neck before locking with hers again.

  “Don’t. Fucking. Thank. Me.” He’d ground out each individual word with a virulence that panged her. “I almost got you killed, Karen!”

  “It wasn’t your fault.”

  He’d sworn and turned away, but not before she saw the self-censure in his eyes. “Of course it’s my fault. Who else’s fault would it be?”

  “But I’m okay, Connor. You saved me.”

  “You are not okay. He cut your goddamn throat!”

  “But that’s all.” Did he think Cubbins had raped her already? Was he suddenly repulsed by that? Should she explain that, even though he’d found her naked, nothing had happened?

  But he’d closed his eyes. Beads of sweat dotted his brow, and she knew she should let him rest.

  She thought he wouldn’t speak again, but as she reached the hospital room door, he added, “Special Agent Gallway’s looking for you. He’s going to take you to a hotel and keep watch over you while your house is getting cleaned.”

  Her house. So that’s how it was going to remain.

  “Thank you,” she said past the bitterness starting to harden her heart.

  “Christ.” He’d turned his face from her and refused to look in her direction again. Apparently, she’d erred by thanking him again.

  So much for their tender and emotional reunion.

  Stunned and disillusioned, Karen had left his room in search of Gallway. She’d only heard from Connor one time after that, when he’d called to check on her. Divorce seemed imminent, just when she’d realized she wanted her marriage back.

  Turning her gaze out the plane’s window, Karen stared unseeing at the busy tarmac below. What had she expected? For Connor to change overnight? He’d put on the same emotional armor that he’d always worn, dashing her hope for anything more intimate. As far as Karen was concerned, he’d shut her out for the last time.

  They were done. Finished. What made her think even for a moment that he’d learned from the past to start anew?

  That night, she’d stayed at the hotel where Gallway had reserved her a room. And even when the HRT lead had assured her that her home was spick and span the next day, with new locks on all the doors and the security system updated, she’d remained at the hotel, regardless of the cost. Her home wasn’t a home without her family. She couldn’t go back and be the last one standing. Alone.

  She’d called the therapy center and informed Carl that she was taking time off. She’d slept through Christmas day and the week following, unable to return to work, unable to sleep without suffering nightmares. When Connor called her that one time, “just to check on her,” she hadn’t picked up.

  Two could play his game.

  It was Drake, flesh of her flesh, who got credit for dragging her out of bed. Having called her several times a day, every day of the week, he’d finally informed her that she was flying out tomorrow to see him and Sky, who needed help putting together a nursery. The baby was due in June. He’d bought his mother a first-class ticket to Athens, leaving at 9 A.M. from Dulles, and she had better the hell be on that flight.

  So, here she was, bound for sunny Greece and unable to whip up a drop of enthusiasm, except when she thought about her first grandbaby, not due for another six months. Her eyes filled with tears that she was sick of crying.

  In her peripheral vision, she took note of a tall figure pausing in the aisle beside the empty seat. Please don’t sit by me. He lifted his carry-on into the rack immediately over her head, canceling out her hope that the seat would remain empty. Karen dashed a hand across her wet cheeks while the stranger lowered himself with a grunt into the seat beside her and said nothing.

  His low grunt and the familiar scent stealing into Karen’s nostrils made her heart give a funny leap. It couldn’t be. Turning her face from the window, she encountered Connor’s green stare with widening eyes. He sent her a tentative smile.

  “What in hell are you doing here?” she exclaimed.

  He looked down at his hands which he held, interlaced, in his lap. “Well. . . my boss thinks I’m headed to the Mediterranean on vacation.”

  “You’ve never taken a vacation in your life,” she pointed out.

  “Maybe it’s time I did. But I’m on not on vacation.” He glanced at her sidelong, with an expression that struck her as appealingly humble.

  “Then what are you doing here?”

  A touch of color stained his cheekbones. “Hoping to win my wife back,” he said, tentatively.

  A sudden suspicion pricked the bubble expanding in Karen’s chest. “Drake put you up to this, didn’t he?”

  “Nope. But he did let me know that you were heading out to see him.” He directed his gaze up the aisle and nodded. “That man in 3C let me switch seats with him.”

  “So you’re following me?”

  “About time, don’t you think?”

  She’d seen the imploring light in his eyes once before, on the dance floor at Drake’s wedding.

  “Karen, I’m sorry for what I said at the hospital. I was just so…furious with myself for letting that happen to you.”

  She made a sound of protest.

  “Please, let me finish.” He laid his large, gentle hand over hers, and the warmth of his skin traveled up her arm to speed her heart. “I’ve never been good at telling you how I really feel. I know that. I know that’s why you left me.”

  Actually, he had left her after destroying about five thousand dollars worth of their property, but that was beside the point.

  “But I’m willing to work on that.” His voice roughened. “I’ve learned a lot these past few years. Like how much you mean to me. It’s like . . . you’re the sun.”

  She made a choking sound and quickly cleared her throat. It was just so unexpected, hearing Connor articulate his feelings. “Go ahead,” she encouraged.

  “And I’m a planet. And if can’t orbit you, then I just float off into a black hole.”

  He’d done it. He’d even waxed poetic in the process. Blinking back what looked like tears, he sent her that same imploring look.

  Suddenly, it dawned on her that he’d wanted to tell her all this at Drake’s wedding. That was why he’d asked her to dance. Only she hadn’t given him the chance to work up his courage.

  “Oh, Connor.” She threaded her fingers through his, as relief, regret, and joy took her by storm.

  He turned in his seat to face her. “Please say it’s not too late.” Lifting his free hand, he ran it lightly through her hair. “I can change, Karen. I can be the man that you need me to be.”

  Tears of discovery burned her eyes. “You’ve always been that man,” she whispered. “You’re the love of my life, Connor.”

  At her words, he closed his eyes in visible relief, bent closer, and rested his forehead on hers. “I don’t deserve your love.”

  “Yes, you do. I’m the one who lost faith in us. I’m the one who let go.”

  “Because I wasn’t holding you close eno
ugh.”

  In the next instant his lips touched hers. And right there in the first class cabin, with the flight attendant eyeing them indulgently, he kissed her like a man who wore his heart on his sleeve.

  Karen kissed him back, delighting in the feel of his lips on hers again after so many years. I feel young and in love again. Everything inside her seemed to blossom, and she remembered feeling her husband’s desire for her on the dance floor. Right now, she wished they could be utterly alone. Just how big was the first class lavatory, anyway? It might be worth finding out.

  As if reading her thoughts, Connor deepened the kiss and started to tease her mouth open with his tongue.

  Her husband had reclaimed her. The past was over and done. She was heading to Greece to visit their son and to enjoy what promised to be a second honeymoon.

  What more could any woman ask for?

  Read more stories featuring the Donovan family!

  DON’T LET GO (Book #5 Navy SEALs series)

  CIA case officer Lucy Donovan plays a secondary character in this story, rescuing Jordan Bliss when she returns to war-torn Venezuela to locate the little boy she’d adopting. Discover how tough of resilient Lucy can be! Buy now.

  TOO FAR GONE (Book #6 Navy SEALs series)

  FBI Special Agent Drake Donovan goes undercover to expose the leader of the Centurion mob, only to fall in love with the mobster’s lovely daughter, Skyler. (Their story is the secondary love story in this book). Buy now.

  SHOW NO FEAR (Book #7 Navy SEALs series)

  In spite of the PTSD Lucy Donovan she was left with as a result of the fiasco in Venezuela, the CIA sends her into Colombia with her college sweetheart, Navy SEAL Gus Atwater, where they pose as international aid workers negotiating the release of American hostages held by rebels. Which weakness will betray Lucy first, her PTSD or her love for a man she’s never forgotten? Buy now.

  LONG GONE (A Novella based on the Characters from TOO FAR GONE)

  It’s been four years since Drake Donovan fell in love with the daughter of the mob boss he put behind bars. One desperate phone call from the blue-eyed beauty pulls him right back into the fight for her future. Drake will assume any risk to keep Skyler Dulay from being lost to him again, but will it be enough to free her from the mob-ties that bind her? Buy now.