by Joan Swan
Mitch put a restraining hand on her arm. “Don’t shoot our rescue, babe. This one is friendly.”
Mitch lifted his arms and waved them overhead, and the chopper lowered.
Grit kicked up in the blade’s windstorm. A man jumped from the chopper and approached Mitch, shook his hand, slapped him on the shoulder. As he turned toward the group, Luke recognized the face—Joe Marquez. The pilot Mitch had sent to get Luke to the private landing strip in time to intercept Keira’s kidnapping.
Marquez moved toward Keira. “Trouble. I knew it the first time I saw you.” His smile shifted to a frown as his dark eyes lingered on her injuries. “I bet you came home with bruises and skinned knees every day as a kid.”
“Every day.” Cash grinned at her side. “Trouble with a capital T.”
“Somehow that doesn’t surprise me.” Marquez glanced at Luke and shook his head. “You two were made for each other.” He gestured to the chopper. “Come on. Let’s get you both checked out. Load up, everyone. We’re on the razor-thin edge of restricted air space here and I’d rather not play chicken with the young guns.”
Inside the chopper, Keira sat with Cash’s arm around her shoulders, their backs up against the cargo bay wall. The scenario reminded Luke of the way he and Keira had sat together on their ride to Mercy Medical Center just a couple of days ago and made him wonder what he could have done differently.
Trading one spiraling thought for another, Luke pulled out the Bible he’d taken from Q’s room and opened it to where the coin separated the pages. He dog-eared the page so he could study the passages there later, hoping to find a clue. To what, he had no idea.
He held out the coin. Conversation in the cargo space ceased.
“What are you doing with that? Here?” Keira asked, her brow furrowed in confusion.
“I got it out of this.” He held up the Bible. “In Q’s cell.”
Keira sucked in a breath and held it. “What am I missing?” Cash asked, his gaze darting from face to face.
“Each of us—I mean our team,” Keira said, waving her hand in a collective gesture encompassing those in the cargo space, even though Mitch hadn’t been part of their firefighting team at the time, “received that coin five years ago for our ‘heroic’ performance at a warehouse fire. The fire that caused all this.” She swept a look over the other faces in the cargo area. “Do you guys all have your coins?”
Around the group, Seth, Kai, and Teague nodded.
“Well, I have mine, and Luke has his. That leaves Jessica.”
“And Quaid.” Luke paused. “Or . . . Q.”
A heavy silence lingered in the cargo hold.“It’s just a coin,” Mitch said. “Couldn’t they have been made and given to different groups?”
“They’re not just coins.” Cash narrowed his eyes on the metal piece. “We had them in the military, too. Some are minted specifically for a special team or event and are as unique as the number in the print run.”
“Look what they’ve done so far: Teague, Cash, Mateo. And those are just the ones we know of. What would have kept them from taking others? There had to be others. Why not Quaid?”
“They closed the coffin,” Keira said, gaze distant. “They said it was because of his”—she swallowed—“condition. Because he hadn’t healed the way the rest of us had, but . . . now . . .”
“Think we should call Jessica?” Seth asked.
“And what?” Kai barked. “Tell her Quaid has been alive all this time, rotting in some jacked-up sci-fi prison? And, oh, by the way, he just died again?”
“That’s what he calls me,” Cash whispered.
“Who? What?” Luke asked.
“Q.” Cash looked up. “He used to call me Sci-Fi because of my work in the lab.”
“What can you tell us about him? What did he look like? What did he say about his past?”
“I never saw him.” Cash shook his head. “They never let us meet. We talked through the heating vent between our cells. He could be one of you and I wouldn’t know it. And we never talked about his past because he had no memory of it. They . . .” He hesitated, cast a look out of the corner of his eye at Keira, then dropped his gaze to the floor of the chopper. “He said they . . . in his words, fucked with his head.”
Keira lifted a hand to cover her eyes. Kai swore a string of curses.
“In other words”—Luke’s mind immediately centered on Mateo, the chips in his head, and what Cash would do when he found out just what those savages had done to his little boy—“they used him as a science experiment.”
Cash lifted his eyes from the floor. Anger floated there, and determination; Luke had seen that look before—in Keira’s eyes. “Q was—is—a good man. He kept me alive in there. I swore to him I’d make them pay. I’m on board, one hundred and ten percent. Whatever you need. Whatever I can do.”
As Cash stared across the cargo space, Luke felt the connection as if they’d known each other for years. As if Cash had always been part of their team. “The reason they put me in that holding cell is because I have the key to a powerful experiment they’ve had me researching for years and thought I’d hidden in my room. They want that information bad. If we play it right, they’d sell, trade, give us anything, to get it.
“And speaking of keys . . .” He glanced at Keira. “Excuse me in advance.”
Cash opened his mouth, stuffed his fingers inside. Luke cringed, fearing the man was going to make himself puke. Instead, he drew a thin, almost clear filament from his throat, the thread growing longer and longer, the way magicians drag never-ending scarves from their sleeves.
He covered his mouth and coughed something into his hand. Then held up a key.
“Good God,” Keira said. “How’d you do that?”
“Tied the key to dental floss, floss to a molar, then swallowed it. I have no idea what it goes to, but it’s important. It’s Dargan’s. She had it on a chain around her neck.”
Keira tried not to keep checking on Luke from the corner of her eye, but she was growing more worried with each minute further into the flight.
After their short discussion on the coin and the key and Quaid, he’d gone quiet again. And while in the beginning, he’d been shooting off anger and frustration, now his vibes had shifted, resembling something closer to . . . extreme turmoil. But her abilities weren’t working at full speed.
“Do you love him even half as much as he loves you?” Cash’s voice brought her attention around again.
“What? Wh—?” She started to ask who, but her brother’s gaze was locked on Luke across the cargo bay. Luke had his knees drawn up, his good arm curved around them, his chin propped on his forearm, and his gaze out the open door, as distant as the horizon brightening with the sunrise. Her heart filled until her entire chest felt tight from the pressure. “Probably twice that much.”
“What’s keeping you apart?”
In light of the last few days, her fears seemed so . . . insignificant.
“My life isn’t exactly family-friendly,” she finally said.
“What does that mean?” he chided. “You’re going to throw Mateo and me to the wolves once we set down? We’re on our own?”
“Of course not.”
He glanced at Luke, back at her. Understanding dawned in his eyes. “Keira, if your life is friendly enough for us, it’s friendly enough for a family of your own.”
She looked at Luke again. Sighed.
“What’s the problem?” he prodded.
“I’m not exactly mother material, Cash.”
He barked a laugh. “This from the girl who had a hundred dolls? I swear I bought you a new one with every paycheck.”
Keira smiled at the memory.
“Remember how you used to sleep with them? Took you hours to get them all ready, brush their hair, their teeth, change their clothes, sing to them, tuck them in. And then—”
“There was no room for me in the bed.”
They laughed together. God, it felt so good.
The moment faded and melancholy drifted in. “I’m not that girl anymore.”
“You’re anyone you want to be.” Cash set serious, knowing eyes on Keira. “Don’t let others’ mistakes dictate your future. What our mother did, what I did . . . God, there is so much to explain.”
“Not now.” She squeezed his hand. “We have lots of time.”
“I was wrong. Our mother was just a sick bitch. Don’t let our problems shape your life. You’re so much better than that, Keira. You were born to shine. In any way you choose.”
His words created a sweet burn beneath her ribs. Tears stung her eyes.
“I’m not in any position to give you advice, but let me just tell you this. When he looks at you, I see the way I felt about Zoya.” His voice took on emotion; his eyes reflected deep pain and deeper love. “You’ve seen firsthand how fragile life can be. How the person you love most can be taken faster than you can say their name.”
He closed his eyes as if the thought was too much for him to bear, pressed his cheek against her head, and squeezed the arm around her shoulder a little tighter. “If I could give you just one piece of advice, Keira, it would be family is life. You should be making time for everything else. Not the other way around. And I’ll be here for you this time. Whatever you need. I’ll never leave you again.” He pressed a kiss against her temple. “Ever.”
For the remaining ten minutes of the flight, Keira closed her eyes and leaned her head against her brother’s shoulder, trying to figure out how she was going to fix the gigantic mess she’d made with Luke. Knowing she had Cash’s solid support gave her a confidence she’d never had before, and for the first time, she thought she might have caught a glimpse of the underlying structure that kept Alyssa so damn strong—her relationship with Mitch.
The chopper slowed and angled. Keira opened her eyes and found Luke staring right at her. A zing of excitement burst deep in her chest—hot and sweet.
Cash and Jessica had both been robbed of that excitement. Never again would either of them open their eyes to see their true love, their best friend, the one person who knew what they were thinking before they even thought it—no powers necessary.
He looked away as the chopper eased to the ground. The air turbulence wafted through the open door and ruffled Luke’s hair. The sunrise drifted over the horizon and lit his face with a healthy glow. Keira’s heart burned with that same fiery luminosity.
She waited until Joe set the chopper’s runners on the ground and the engine wound down before she sat up and slid from beneath Cash’s arm.
“Luke?”
He lifted his eyes to hers for only a second before someone appeared at the open door. Alyssa. She ducked to avoid the hurricane-force winds, holding Mateo in one arm and Kat in the other, her huge belly poking out between them.
“What in the hell?” Teague jumped out the door and grabbed Kat from her arms, then Mateo. “Baby, you should not be carrying these two monsters.”
Anticipation had Keira darting a look at Cash. His face had gone slack with what looked like a mixture of love and shock and pain. He seemed frozen against the side of the chopper.
“Oh, my God,” he whispered without taking his eyes off Mateo. “My God, he’s . . . beautiful.”
“Baba?” Mateo’s voice took on a worried edge as his big brown eyes squinted to scour the faces in the dark cargo hold. “Baba?”
Keira elbowed Cash. “Hello.” She put that duh tone in her voice. “That’s you.”
“Ye-ah.” The word came out dry and broken as Cash emerged from his trance. He cleared his throat. “Yeah, buddy. Right here, I mean, um . . . edw, gio.”
“Baba!” Mateo shrieked, making Keira grimace as the sound pierced her eardrums. Sure of his destination, the boy released the fist he’d had in Teague’s fatigue jacket and scrambled from his hold to lunge toward his father. “Baba! Baba!”
The moment Cash took hold of the boy, emotion exploded between them, radiating through the cargo space, so strong it nearly knocked Keira off her feet.
Love. Pure, absolute, infinite.
She had experienced milliseconds of the emotion during pristine moments with Kat. In that first touch of Mateo’s hand. And she wanted it again. A lot more of it. Forever. She wanted a child to share that bond with. And there was only one man she’d ever want to have that child with.
She looked toward Luke, but he’d averted his gaze from the reunion, slowly scooting toward the open cargo door, his face twisted in pain. But the pain wasn’t just physical. That turmoil she’d sensed earlier had grown dark.
“Luke . . .”
“Tó’ksera óti tha erhósoon gia ména, babá.” Mateo latched on to Cash with both arms, pushed his face into his father’s shoulder, and started to cry.
Then Cash started to cry. He crooned to the boy in Greek, ran a hand over his hair, a thumb over his cheek, pressed a kiss to his forehead.
More tears burned Keira’s eyes. “What does it mean?”
“He knew I’d come for him.” Cash’s handsome face filled with so many emotions it hurt Keira to watch.
“That’s the first time he’s ever cried.” Mateo’s whimper made her heart fold like origami. She put a hand against the boy’s back and tried to ignore the tears Cash kept wiping away from his own cheeks. “He’s been a brave little soldier.”
“Speaking of brave little soldiers,” Alyssa said, “Luke, get your butt out here. My doctor friend came in early this morning just to look at you.” She extended a hand to Cash. “I’m Alyssa. Teague’s wife. Welcome home. Keira is family, which makes you family, too.” She grinned as Cash took her hand. “Like it or not.”
Luke reached the edge of the cargo bay. Keira’s attention refocused. The urgency to talk to him tightened her chest. “Wait, Luke?”
Alyssa took Luke’s arm, helping him off the chopper. “You can have him later. I’ll take a look at you myself once Luke is settled. Anyone else who needs medical attention—cuts, bruises, bumps, pains, come now or forever keep your mouths shut.”
Teague and Alyssa started for the SUVs. He dropped his free arm around her shoulder, and she wrapped an arm around his waist, tilted her face up, and kissed him. When she pulled back, a lightning-bug smile brightened her face. They kissed again. Spoke. Kissed a third time. So much love there. Such a perfect little family.
Luke kept his gaze on the ground as he veered toward the passenger’s side of the first of a trio of black SUVs Keira didn’t recognize. Alyssa broke from Teague with a pat on his ass and opened the door for Luke, then rounded the driver’s side as Teague settled in the back with Kat, and took off.
For a reason Keira couldn’t identify, the sight of Luke driving away caused a whip of panic to snap in her chest. “Whoever’s coming with me, get in or get on the next bus.”
“Uh-uh,” Kai cut her off and slid into the driver’s seat. “You’re not driving with that arm.”
“Thia,” Mateo said. She turned and found his hand held out to her.
Her heart filled. She took his hand, kissed his palm. “Yes, baby. You and your daddy will always come with me.”
With Kai driving, Keira followed the directions already programmed into the GPS system because the vehicle carrying Luke was already out of sight. This sense of panic was new and unwarranted. Illogical.
Keira parked in the lot alongside the same medical building where they’d taken Mateo to retrieve the chip in his neck. Mitch and Seth pulled up behind them. As they emerged from the vehicle, Kai directed each man to cover a different corner of the building.
Keira limped in through the side door and found Alyssa coming out of an exam room, the door closing behind her.
“Is Luke in there?” Keira started in that direction without waiting for an answer. “I want to hear what the doctor—”
“He’s getting an X-ray.” Alyssa put her fingers around Keira’s upper
arm and urged her across the hall, toward another room. “He’s in good hands.” She looked past Keira at Cash, still carrying Mateo. “Teague and Kat are in the waiting room with the toys. Cash, I’ll check you out when I’m finished with Keira.” She closed the door at her back, pointed to the exam table, and said, “Sit, honey. You don’t look so good.”
“You say that to me a lot.” Keira obeyed but stared at the door. Luke’s emotions had her unsettled. No, downright scared. Hadn’t he heard anything she’d said to him in the tunnel? Or maybe it had been too little, too late. Maybe she’d broken his heart one too many times.
The rip of fabric drew her gaze down. Alyssa had donned gloves and now split her pants from the thigh down with rescue shears, exposing a very bloody leg. The cool office air licked at the wound, stinging deep into her muscle.
Alyssa sighed. “What a mess.” With some gauze and saline, she cleaned the wound. “It’s not deep, but I think it’s too wide to stitch. Let’s see your arm.”
Keira shed her fatigue jacket, then let Alyssa cut her shirt sleeve.
“Now this one I can do something about,” Alyssa murmured after looking at the wound on her upper arm. “I’m going to leave your leg to Teague. You’re damned lucky, Keira.”
She knew she was lucky. In more ways than she could count. And her mind was pinging in so many different directions, she couldn’t keep them all straight.
Alyssa cleaned the wound on her arm. Her friend’s belly rested against her thigh as she worked. The baby thumped. Keira startled and pulled away.
“He won’t bite. Won’t even get teeth for another six months.” Alyssa lifted Keira’s hand and pressed it to the belly bulging beneath her thin sweater. “You’ve never felt him, have you?”
“Uh, no.” She watched Alyssa’s stomach, mesmerized at the roll and thud beneath her hand. Something deep at her core clenched and ached. Brought tears to her eyes. Everything seemed to be twisting her emotions. “That’s . . . wow. Amazing. Kind of . . . no offense to the little guy . . . weird. Like you have an alien in there.” She pulled her hand away and pointed at Alyssa. “You can’t ever tell him I said that.”
