The Hitman Who Loved Me

by Shady Grace

  “I—”

  “But then you turned out to be a fraud anyway! You kill people for a living?” She choked on her last words, and stared past him to Ben’s body. She shuddered. “I don’t even know you.” The terror and rage in her eyes made Sam shut his mouth. “This whole trip you badgered me with questions, when all along, I was just a delivery girl and you were the one sent to entrap me and kill me! What kind of man are y-you?”

  Sam exhaled in defeat. He had no argument, because she was right. Maybe he was a monster. Maybe he should slink away in the shadows never to return again. He deserved that lonely fate.

  “Everything you said…was a lie.”

  Her shoulders shook as she hung her head and quietly cried. He couldn’t help himself—despite her hatred of him. Sam walked up to her and put his arms around her. Her arms hung at her sides, her body trembled, as he held her tight in his arms.

  His heart pounded when he realized that this would be the last time he saw her, got to hold her, got to hear her voice and look at her beautiful face.

  “I didn’t want to do it,” he murmured, his voice clipped. “I took the job not realizing that I’d fall in love you.”

  She pulled back and stared up at him, her mouth open in shock.

  “I think I fell in love with you that night on the dock.” He let out a deep sigh, trying to find the right words as she stood there, trembling. “When I saw you on the terrace on your first day here, I didn’t want it to be you. And if I could take it all back, I would.”

  She stared up at him, eyes wide and wet with tears, but she said nothing.

  “I’ve been alone most of my life, Jamie. Until recently I never really knew my family. The men I work for, and with, have been there for me, and I don’t deny that I’ve done some terrible things. But I’m not a monster. I had to protect them, that’s why I took this job.”

  He set her at arm’s length, even though he didn’t want to. “I think it’s best if you go home now. Put this place behind you.”

  Her chin quivered. “What about Monty?”

  “I’ll make sure he gets home. I promise.”

  “What are you going to do?” Tears rolled down her cheeks and it made his own eyes burn with despair.

  “I’m going to finish what I started.”

  As the woman he loved walked toward the abandoned building, she paused at the corner and looked back at him. The sadness and longing he saw in her eyes made him want to sink to his knees and scream to the blue sky. Life wasn’t fair and love was painful. Why didn’t Gabe and Terry warn him how horrible this feeling would be?

  A vision of his mother smiling at him made his heart ache even more. As much as he hated how they left him, it made him wonder if his choices in life were just a version of theirs. His mother was beautiful, with dark eyes, perfect brown skin, and teased hair just like Auntie Rose. She could’ve been a model, could’ve been anything. But she chose his crazy Irish father instead, with the horrible blond mustache and tall, white, gangly body. They were the complete opposite, but they fell in love hard. That much Sam knew. He recalled how they looked at each other during their rare visits with such heartache and fear and longing it was gross for a kid to look at. But now that Sam was a grown man, he knew what that meant. They were afraid to lose each other. To him, that was real love. Real passion. Real life.

  He was afraid of losing Jamie, but he still had to finish his job.

  When Jamie disappeared around the corner, Sam took a deep breath and made his way over to her friend’s body to check his wound, all the while thinking about the love his parents had for each other, right until their deaths. If only he could be luckily enough to have that one day.

  The bullet got Monty just below the shoulder. It wasn’t life threatening. His pulse was weak but it was there.

  As he heard Jamie drive away, Sam pulled out his cell phone and dialed Gabe who answered immediately.

  “So?”

  “I need you to set that trigger.”

  Twenty seconds later a bomb exploded in the distance. He’d never felt such relief before in his life. He glanced over at Ben’s body, to the pool of blood soaking into the ground. Ben deserved to be left there for the animals to finish.

  Sam picked Monty off the ground and carried him to Zamira’s car to gently lay him across the back seat. If this man was a friend of Jamie’s, then he’d take good care of him. Then he returned to the garden wall and grabbed the envelope for Jamie. She may not want it, but he’d make sure she got it somehow. It was clear to him that she took this job delivering the briefcase because she had to. She did it for the money.

  He returned to the car and looked back to see Monty’s eyelids fluttering. He’d be okay, as long as Sam got him to a hospital by nightfall.

  He barreled down the dirt road toward the main highway and the black smoke curling up into the sky. There, in the middle of the road, was Amanda’s charred body, still clinging to what was left of the steering wheel, as tiny pieces of ten million bucks lay scattered all around her. What a waste. All that money.

  He shook his head in disbelief, grabbed his cell, and punched in Terry’s number. His brother answered on the third ring. “Hey, buddy.”

  “Hey yourself.” He exhaled hard. “It’s done.”

  There was a short pause before Sam heard Terry’s sigh of relief. “Who was the woman? Wait. Let me guess. My stepmother?”

  “No. I don’t think we have to worry about her. Antonio will keep her on a tight leash. Besides, they don’t need your money. They’re worth ten times what you are.”

  “True.” Terry chuckled. “Who was it, then?”

  Sam could tell him that it was Ben all along, with Amanda’s help, but he wouldn’t. Terry thought he’d killed him. Sam didn’t want his brother to feel like he’d failed. “It was one of my rivals, Terry. Nobody you knew.”

  “Are you okay?”

  He almost shed a tear from the expression of defeat on Jamie’s face before she walked away. “I’ll be all right.”

  “And the girl?”

  “What girl?”

  Terry laughed and the baby started crying in the background. Sam winced from the hair-raising scream, then smiled as Terry shushed the baby quiet. He was a good father and Sam was envious. “The one you couldn’t keep your hands off of. Gabe told me all about her. Apparently you finally found a normal one.”

  And I failed to keep her. “Maybe I don’t deserve normal.”

  “I think you do. Don’t put yourself down, Sam. You’re one of best men I know. Now that this is over you should come home and we’ll all have a nice dinner. You’ll get your ten million, and then you can go find your girl. I trust you know where she went?”

  “I put a tracking device on her back when I kissed her.”

  Terry chuckled. “You’re such a romantic.”

  Sam frowned when it suddenly struck him. “My ten million? What are you talking about?”

  “That’s your payoff and your retirement for doing this last job, brother. I think it’s time you grow up like the rest of us. Did you really think I had that briefcase filled with real money? We have crooked friends for a reason, you know.”

  Sam couldn’t help his incredulous laughter. “I should’ve known. Does Gabe know my retirement is larger than his?”

  “That’ll be between you and me,” Terry murmured into the phone.

  Sam smiled. It felt good having one up on Gabe for a change. “I’ll be home soon.”

  As Sam and an unconscious Monty headed back to Havana, he imagined what life would be like now that it was over. Quiet days and nights ahead. No more looking over his shoulder. No more screaming—except from his brothers’ babies.

  He knew he’d never be good enough for Jamie. She deserved everything good in the world. A good, gentle man who’d spoil her rotten and exhaust himself keeping her happy. A man who would touch her with a gentle hand by day, and ravish her rough at night, with everything in betwee
n of course. He wanted to give her some of those screaming babies, too, even if it meant giving it to her every single night and day. Which was why he’d never let her walk away that easily.

  Even if he had to chase her down for the rest of his days.

  Epilogue

  The offer to return to Sharp Ridge Lodge couldn’t have come sooner. Jamie stared out the window of the twin Otter, her mind lost with the rain pelting the airplane windows.

  She had packed her things and left her apartment for good. When the season was over, she planned to move elsewhere. Somewhere new. Somewhere she could start fresh. Definitely nowhere tropical.

  The past eight months since leaving Cuba and her insane mission that nearly got her killed, she couldn’t wait for the solitude of the bush. A new corporation had bought the lodge from Valerie and, just as Valerie had promised, all staff were invited back to work.

  “I wonder what he’s doing right now, maybe chasing somebody on a skidoo in the Swiss Alps.”

  Jamie shook her head and glared at Monty sitting beside her.

  Monty had returned from Cuba cleaned up and in excellent health with a scar from a bullet to brag about. He was a changed man, and he couldn’t stop talking about Sam as if he was some kind of hero. It made her loneliness even worse. She missed him so bad she hadn’t slept a whole night since she’d left his hotel room that fateful morning.

  Eight months of sleepless nights and terrifying nightmares when she did manage to catch a wink. “I should’ve let that woman kill you,” she teased. Knowing that Jack—or Sam—had taken good care of him made her miss him dreadfully.

  “He carried me into that hospital, Jamie, and he stayed with me until I woke up.”

  She rolled her eyes and stared out the window. “I know, Monty.” Her heart ached as his face came to mind. She’d never feel the soft curls of his thick hair as she feathered her fingers through. Never again would she see the urgent need in his eyes as he looked down at her before pressing his lips to hers. Hot tears rushed to the surface as his gold-toothed grin flashed before her tired eyes. Why did he have to be so wonderful? Killer or not, she just wanted to see him and hold him again. She wanted to feel his strength wrapped around her. That was all that really mattered. She wasn’t perfect either. Nobody was in this crazy world.

  “Why don’t you call him?”

  As the twin Otter soared over the endless wilderness of the north, closer to the place where she’d first met him, a nervous ball filled her stomach. “I can’t. We live two very different lives.”

  “He’s just a regular guy—”

  “Who happens to kill people,” she snapped. Her eyes widened as Monty’s face lowered and his brows slanted with a frown. “I’m sorry. You didn’t deserve that. I’m just…frustrated.”

  Monty nodded. The poor guy had had to deal with her shitty attitude for eight months now, but like a great friend, he took it in stride. “If you never found out that part of his life, would you be with him?”

  Jamie stared out the window and tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear, thinking about his question. “Maybe.” But Jamie knew she’d figure out Sam’s secret eventually, and then she’d grow to resent him for lying to her. She believed that when a person loved somebody, they should never lie to them, and they certainly shouldn’t lie about where their income is coming from. They shouldn’t tell their girlfriend that they just landed a new account at a firm when really, they got paid to shoot a man in the back of the head. That’s quite a big difference. One could mean climbing the corporate ladder and becoming successful, the other could mean walking into a six-foot cell and never seeing their loved ones in private ever again. Or death.

  But she had to admit, knowing that he was a dangerous man, yet he touched her with such gentleness, with such raw passion, was a turn-on. Sometimes she dreamed about him chasing down an evil villain and then making love to her with his handgun sitting on the bedside table.

  Even though she tried not to think about him, every single day she wondered what Sam was doing. She had fallen in love with a hitman. A man who was supposed to kill her but didn’t. He wasn’t a monster. Monsters don’t help their lover’s friends. Sam could’ve left Monty there to die, but he didn’t. He could’ve had somebody else kill her, but he didn’t. He told her to get away from there and to put that place behind her. He’d saved her, too. Maybe Monty was right calling him a hero. Still, she was confused and afraid. She couldn’t put that place behind her, and she couldn’t put him behind her, either.

  Jack Daniels and Sam Hayes broke down that wall she had erected long ago. As much as she wanted to run to him and figure out a way to be together and to be safe, she feared that he could get hurt or killed over of her, because she knew he would protect her at all costs, even if it meant giving up his own life.

  A man like Sam needed danger and excitement, and she couldn’t live wondering and worrying if he would make it back home every night. If they were to be together, then he would have to give it up. She couldn’t live in constant fear. And if he couldn’t handle that, he couldn’t have her.

  “He told me some things while I was lying there in the hospital.”

  She blew out a defeated breath and stared out the window, not really listening to him. “I know, Monty. You told me this before.”

  “But I didn’t tell you everything because you were too angry back then.”

  She closed her eyes and shook her head. Maybe it was time for her to listen to Monty for a change, instead of the other way around. “Okay. What did he say?” She tried to sound interested but failed miserably.

  “He said he’d never been in love before.”

  “Huh.” Neither have I. Look what falling in love does to you.

  “He said he’d never met a woman quite like you before.”

  “I see.” She sighed, and stared hard at an abandoned beaver house in a swamp down below. If he’d never met a woman like me before, then why did he let me leave?

  “Apparently, Valerie really took him to the cleaners for—”

  She jerked around in her seat and glared at him. “For what?”

  Monty shrugged, but the sly grin on his freshly shaven face belied his nonchalance as he lounged back in his seat, avoiding her probing stare. Jamie settled back, stiff and uncomfortable by the odd exchange, and stared out the window again, wondering what the hell he meant by that. What did Valerie have to do with anything?

  An hour later the Otter circled over the lodge for a rough landing on the choppy water. As the plane taxied toward the dock, Jamie was happy to see old Groundskeeper Jobe was still alive and standing on the second tier of the dock, waiting for them.

  “There’s your lover,” Monty said.

  “That’s gross. I’m not that desperate.” She cringed picturing his liver-spotted hands reaching out for her.

  “I’m not talking about Jobe.”

  Jamie whipped her head around so fast that her neck nearly cracked. She shoved Monty back in his seat to look out the window on the other side of the plane. Beside ol’ Jobe stood another man. Her heart pounded a jagged rhythm as hope and happiness made her breath hitch, but she fought away the tears rushing up.

  The pilot hopped out of the cockpit and opened the back side door. It felt as though Jamie floated out of that plane as she stepped onto the dock and faced him.

  Sam stood there, dressed in khakis and a T-shirt, looking nothing like a hitman or a criminal or anything other than a regular, handsome man who belonged in the bush. His gold-toothed smirk made her stomach flutter with anxiety and passion.

  Something was wrong with the air as she sucked in a sharp breath.

  “What are you doing here?” she said, trying to hide her excitement. She didn’t want him to know how much she missed him and needed him, nearly went insane thinking about him.

  “Getting the lay of the land before work starts tomorrow.” His hot gaze took her in from hiking boots to baseball cap, before he smiled. �
��You look fantastic.”

  Her insides melted a little. How she missed that handsome smile and the sexy view of his killer body. Then she realized what he’d said first. “Working on what?”

  “Whatever you tell him to do, twit,” Monty added as he walked past her. The two men shook hands, then Monty glanced back with a killer grin. “You’re the new boss lady.”

  Jamie’s jaw dropped as everyone left them alone on the dock. “I don’t understand….”

  “I bought this place because I fell in love with it. And I fell in love with the housekeeper right in this spot under a moonlit night.”

  Sam walked toward her, and for the life of her, Jamie couldn’t move. “I’d like to start from the beginning, if you’d let me.” He reached his hand out. “I’m Sam Hayes.”

  Jamie looked down at his hand as tears welled in her eyes. Seeing him again after eight long months was too much to handle. She put her trembling hand in his as tears rolled down her cheeks.

  Right at that convenient moment the rusty hinges screamed in protest as the lodge door opened wide. Otis Redding’s “Love Man” blared over the lawn just for a brief moment as a beautiful, older woman with green-rimmed glasses and a perfect afro headed toward a lounge chair. She walked with the air of confidence yet with an easy sway that Jamie immediately liked. In one hand the woman held a ball of yarn and in the other, she gripped a crochet hook.

  Jamie frowned at the strange coincidence over the book she was ordered to carry in Cuba, and seeing this woman carrying that very thing. “Who is that?” she asked, still staring at the woman.

  Sam chuckled. “That’s my Auntie Rose. I promise you’ll love her. Everyone does. She’s just visiting for a week then heading to Spain. Maybe Alaska after that.”

  Jamie glanced back at him in surprise. “Spain then Alaska? Wow, that’s quite the vacation.”

  “One day, if you’d let me, I’ll take you there, too. I’ll take you wherever you want to go.”

  No book, no song, no movie could describe the swell of happiness and love she felt in that moment. And relief. For once in her life, Jamie wasn’t afraid or nervous of what tomorrow would bring. She swallowed hard, imagining all the wonderful and exciting things they could do together. But first…she looked up at him, trying to blink away her blinding tears. “And your next job, when do you leave for that?”