Hard to Forget

by Incy Black

  Drawing her brows together, she shot a pointed scowl at Jack. You did not push the enemy when he was the one holding the gun. She angled her body so that she was fully facing Smith, rather than straining to look at him over her shoulder. With the cushions of the sofa soft beneath her, kneeling was awkward, but if she had to, she could spring up and leap the distance to Smith. The force of her body hitting him might give Jack time to retaliate.

  “Don’t be stupid, Lowry. You’re so easy to read. Attack and you die. Now get over here, and no sudden moves, because I will shoot you dead.”

  “There are still men out the front, Smith,” Jack reminded him softly. “That silencer is not going to deaden the noise if you fire. Not completely.”

  “Oh, I wouldn’t worry about them. They’re a couple of Peter’s players. I recruited them for him, and now with him gone, they’ll take their instructions from me. The Service really needs to pay better if they want to ensure loyalty. I gave you an order, Lowry, so get over here.”

  Her knees buckled a little as she moved to comply. From kneeling, she assured herself as she forced down the fear.

  “What did Peter do to you to make you hate him so much, Smith? Steal your toys? Rip the head off your favorite teddy?” Jack asked, his voice now soft. Deadly.

  God, she wished Jack would just shut up and stop riling the man. Once she was close enough, she’d make a move.

  “Not my teddy, our mother. Does that count? I think I was about three at the time. But her passing was a bedtime story Peter liked to tell over and over and over. Paid Father back for his part in her mutilation when I could. Peter’s turn was always going to come. For that, and for finding it so damned amusing.”

  “No one laughing now, John. I can’t imagine what you went through with Patient Peter for a brother. The man was sick. A sadistic bully. But this isn’t going to help.” She wasn’t sure talking kindly would help, but she was ready to try every option.

  “Do you recall the last time you called me John, Lowry? I asked you to have dinner with me. You declined in the same pitying voice you’re using now.” He reached out, grabbed her hair, yanked her close against him, his arm fixing across her throat.

  Through the mist of pain, she heard Jack growl and felt the cold of the gun barrel cut deeper into her cheek.

  “Back off, Ballentyne. Or she’s dead on the ground before you get to take another step.”

  Chapter Twenty

  “You won’t get away with this, Smith.”

  “Yes, I will. If nothing else, I’m a meticulous planner. I kill the girl; I kill you. I pin the blame on the two men out there. Of course, they’ll have to die, too. I’ll say there was a firefight, that I did my best to avert the tragedy. I’m already the hero of the night, thanks to you. I’m as good as home free.”

  Lowry tried to suppress the shudder. She’d never have thought it possible for a male to giggle like that. Smith must have felt her revulsion, because he tightened his grip.

  “Marshall will come after you,” Jack disagreed. “He’ll turn your story inside out. He knows Patient Peter had an accomplice. It’s all on tape. I recorded everything your brother had to say on my phone.”

  “Yes, but then he’ll be looking for Walter Forsythe. Who, thanks to my father, is officially recorded as having died over thirty years ago, alongside Jenny Forsythe, much beloved mother and wife. A tragic boating accident, the bodies were never recovered. To be fair, the real John Smith is dead too…or was until he was resurrected through me. My father was always uncannily good with records and paperwork.”

  She tried to shut her mind to yet another peel of horrendous giggles. So damaged, so unnatural. So goddamn frightening.

  “So Marshall can dig all he likes. Eventually, Walter will be dismissed as just a figment of Patient Peter’s crazed imagination,” Smith continued. “Something you’ll no doubt find amusing, Lowry, having been in a similar situation yourself.”

  She hoped Jack was ready. She wouldn’t get another chance. From the distant wistfulness in his tone, Smith appeared to be momentarily distracted in his own glee.

  She pulled her elbow forward and then drove it back deep into the man’s ribs, at the same time curling her left leg around his to knock him off balance.

  He lost his footing. Her body cushioned his fall, his weight driving the air from her lungs as he pinned her to the floor.

  Not quite what she’d planned.

  Her surprise body blow to Smith had caused him to discharge his gun, the stray bullet taking out the central chandelier and shorting out the wall sconces in the room.

  She gulped in a breath as the suffocating weight lifted. Heard Jack roar at her to get the phone. “On the desk to the right of the fireplace. Call the Cube’s special alert line; the number hasn’t changed…leave it off the hook…then get out the window. Run.”

  She heard a grunt, a groan, the sound of someone hitting the floor, then flesh on flesh contact. Hard. Brutal. Intended to maim, if not kill.

  On her hands and knees, she scrabbled through the darkness. More grunts. More gasps. Furniture falling, ornaments smashing, and the sickening sound of fists driving into flesh and bone.

  Her fingers brushed cold metal, the dark shape sinister. Jack’s gun. She fisted it, continued her crawl, ignoring the sting of carpet burn to her knuckles.

  Her fingers stubbed against the resistance of cool marble. The fireplace.

  Relief warred with urgency. She squinted against the dark. Saw the shadowy outline of what looked like a desk. She scooted forward, throat so tight, air had difficulty passing through.

  Gunshots.

  Panic threatened to empty her stomach.

  Oh God, Jack. Let him be all right. He was tough, trained for this. Expert in hand-to-hand combat. Deadly… So, was Smith. But neither was invincible against a bullet. Please not Jack, please not Jack…

  …Please not Jack. The refrain tore her mind apart, an unrelenting echo that refused to silence and die.

  She crawled faster, sprawled as her arms collapsed, pushed back up, scrambled forward, yanked on a trailing cord. The body of the phone made a dull thud as it hit the carpet. She patted the floor blindly, wildly, to locate the fallen instrument.

  Found it, turned it upright.

  She dragged her fingers across the surface of the unfamiliar keypad, roughly positioned the buttons in her mind and rapidly jabbed out the special alert number that would connect her to emergency operations at the Cube. She had no need to wait for the pick-up. Use of the number would immediately activate a trace, and a task force would be dispatched.

  The door flew open, and light spilled in from the hall beyond. A looming hulk of a figure stood in silhouette, gun extended.

  Too soon for help.

  Lowry didn’t hesitate. She had no idea if Jack was down. But the thuds, thumps, scuffling, and foul language of him and Smith fighting had ceased.

  The silence terrified her.

  Without thought, she brought up her arm, curled her finger round the trigger and fired. And fired again. Again and again.

  The figure curled and slumped to the floor. She was dimly aware of someone screaming. She wanted to yell at them to shut the hell up. She needed to get the hideous sound out of her head.

  More shots. Not from her.

  The screaming wouldn’t stop. Dear God, it was her.

  She staggered to her feet, felt the sting of hot lead plow her shoulder, the force of the bullet’s impact spinning her. She fell.

  Her head connected with the marble fireplace.

  It hurt to breathe. No, she couldn’t breathe. She rolled onto her back to relieve the pressure on her chest. Found herself staring into the smoldering eyes of John Smith. They should have been wild, insane. Instead, they were empty.

  He raised his hand, leveling the barrel of the pistol dead center with the bridge of her nose. “Good-bye, bitch.”

  Her final thoughts were of Jack. She should have told him. Told him she loved him. That she’d never regre
tted doing so.

  Silly thoughts. Wasted thoughts.

  More gunfire. So much gunfire. She could taste cordite in the air.

  She rolled onto her side, drew up her knees to her chest.

  Someone was tugging at her, trying to stretch her out. She didn’t have the strength to flap them away, so she curled tight into her own little ball and welcomed the darkness.

  …

  It was at her insistence that the medics reluctantly discharged her from the hospital after a fortnight. The bullet wound to her shoulder hadn’t been life threatening, but the loss of blood had been. She’d needed transfusions. Jack’s men hadn’t hesitated.

  Jack, she’d been told, had not been as lucky. He’d taken two bullets to the chest, one collapsing a lung. But even in that terribly injured state, when most men would not have been able to move, he’d found the strength to take Smith down, firing round after round into the man until convinced he was dead.

  And when the second wave of rescuers had come to their aid, he’d held them at gunpoint, not letting them near her, until Marshall had arrived and personally vouched for each of the men.

  He’d faced weeks of medical care, apparently swearing his way through his enforced rehabilitation, and was now back with the Service. She hadn’t inquired too closely into what he was doing.

  No one had understood her refusal to see him. They failed to understand her refusal to discuss him. And she didn’t share with them that it just hurt too damned much to do so. Even now, weeks and weeks later, the pain was constant, a dull gnaw, deep within her, but she was learning to live with it. Sort of. Eventually her appetite would return.

  She slipped her right shoulder free from the silk of her robe to examine the scar on her shoulder in the mirror and sighed a gale. The angry, puckered redness had finally paled. Now she had two visible scars as a mark of her past. How lucky could a girl get?

  A knock sounded on her bedroom door. She hastily drew the silk back up over her shoulder. She’d built a damned fine façade against the world to prove she’d recovered, that she was in no way tormented by thoughts of Jack. She wasn’t about to let anyone guess the truth. That she was falling apart on the inside.

  “Come in.”

  “Morning, Lowry, found this on the doormat. It’s addressed to you. Must have arrived sometime during the night.”

  She smiled at her father. Though still in pain, he was back where he belonged and happier for it. Back with the Service, like Jack. She seemed to be the only one still cut adrift.

  She forced that thought from her mind. She’d shoot herself before she surrendered to self-pity. She still had her painting—or would have when she dredged up sufficient energy to consider picking up a brush—and the bridge between her father and her was getting stronger each day.

  She frowned at the envelope in her hand. No stamp. No address, just her name. Typed.

  She pulled a face, then slid the tip of her finger beneath the fold and jagged an uneven opening across the top. The leaf of paper inside was heavy. Expensive. The color of clotted cream.

  Intrigued, she unfolded the document.

  Got your cat—not sorry!

  No signature, but Jack’s handwriting. Strong. Bold. Unmistakable. Naturally, the arrogant bastard would assume she’d recognize his script and it irked that he was right.

  Her vision narrowed. She’d sacrificed her heart for that damned man, and this was how he repaid her? By playing stupid games? “Where is he, Dad?”

  “Harrick Hall. Want to commandeer my car? You know I’ll cover for you if you’re caught speeding.”

  “That cover extend to murder? Because that’s exactly what I’m going to commit when I get my hands on him.”

  …

  When she arrived at the Hall, tired and agitated, it was Richard who informed her that with the rewiring complete, Jack had holed-up in the west wing, and that’s where she’d find him.

  He snagged her wrist, his eyes dancing with amusement, as she moved past him. “You’re not armed are you? Because you look kind of dangerous.”

  “Do I? Good. But no, I’m not carrying a gun. I’m angry enough not to need one.”

  The quickest route to the west wing was to cut along the terrace. Not once did she let her eyes drift upwards. She had no wish to measure the height from which she could have fallen when scaling down the façade of the Hall.

  It didn’t take her long to find the bane of her bloody life. She stormed through the open French doors, marched the long length of the drawing room, her footsteps echoing around the emptiness of the sparsely furnished room that was still raw-plaster naked.

  Hands on hips, her chest rising and falling with pent-up aggression, she parked herself in front of the television, deliberately blocking his view.

  “I’ve come for my cat.”

  “Hoped you might.”

  Jack lay sprawled on the floor, his shoulders hitched low against the sofa. Discarded newspapers lay littered around him as if cast aside in impatience, and three of the family wolfhounds, looking decidedly hangdog, lounged beside him.

  She was loath to admit it, but he looked criminally sexy. Barefoot. Faded jeans torn at one knee, and a very faded green T-shirt she vaguely remembered. He also looked pained and uncomfortable. Maybe his chest was bothering him.

  “Why are you on the floor?”

  “Because that damned cat of yours has staked a claim on the sofa and refuses to share. The dogs are terrified of him, and so am I.”

  She slow blinked at him. “He’s not on there now.”

  “No, but we make so much as a move on those cushions, he’ll be back, and if he catches us, there will be hell to pay.”

  She notices the scratches on his arms and grimaced. “I’m surprised you haven’t shot him.”

  “Oh believe me, I’ve thought about it. A lot. But being a reasonable man, I’ve decided if it keeps you happy, it would be better to let that vicious fur ball live here.”

  Reasonable? Hah, the man was insane—delectable, but insane. She licked her lips, saw that Jack appeared fascinated by her involuntary signal, and screwed her eyes tight shut. “He’s not living with you, Jack. He’s mine, and I want him back.”

  “You’re welcome to him. But he’s my hostage and will be living here at the Hall.”

  Her incredulity spiked. Her eyes flew open. “What is it you want, Jack? And what kind of a man steals a cat?”

  “You. And a desperate one.”

  He might appear calm, nonchalant even, but she recognized that glint in his eye. The smoldering anger and frustration he was trying, and failing, to hide. Whatever the hell it was he wanted, he wasn’t going to stop until he got it.

  She dropped to her haunches, ducked her head to her knees—that’s what people did who felt light headed, right?

  “You okay?”

  She shot him a filthy look. “Not really. I feel like I’ve crossed into some parallel universe where nothing is what it seems, and nothing makes sense.”

  “Know the feeling,” he said dryly and then his tone turned flirtatious “I’m happy to play doctors and nurses if it’ll make you feel better.”

  She shook her head. “I can’t believe you just said something that asinine.”

  “Frankly, nor can I. But I’m prepared to make an idiot of myself to get some answers.”

  Faster than she could track it, his foot shot out and did something relatively painless to her knee that threw her off balance. He caught her before she hit the floor and deposited her beside him, one arm banding her tight.

  He grinned at her abject indignation and shrugged his shoulders. “You know me; any way so long as it’s my way. Now, start talking.”

  “I’m speechless.”

  “Yeah, welcome to my world. You fall in love with a woman and experience the equivalent of walking barefoot on razor blades to tell her so. You’re told she feels the same way about you. You both get shot to pieces, but the bad guys die, and then there’s supposed to be a happily ever
after. But the woman refuses to take your calls. Refuses to even discuss you and spends her days making herself miserable pining for you—and don’t deny it, because your father told me—does that sound crazy to you, or is it just me who’s lost the plot?”

  “You don’t understand, Jack.”

  “Damn straight, I don’t. What the hell has gotten into you? You’re not traumatized by what happened. I know, because I got Richard to hack your medical records. So it’s something else. Something about me that you can’t face. So let’s have it. And don’t hold anything back, because that will just piss me off.”

  Her chest tightened. She flexed her shoulders to shrug off his arm. Half of her wanted to press so close she disappeared into him; the other half berated her for daring to even consider something so dangerous.

  “Breathe, Lowry. You pass out on me, and my mother will evict me. She’s already having second thoughts about me wanting to make the Hall my permanent home.”

  Christ, how to explain? Where to start?—and what did he mean about making the Hall his permanent home?

  Jack maneuvered her so that her head was tucked beneath his chin, her cheek resting on his chest. “Not feeling particularly patient here. I am who I am, Lowry. That’s not going to change. Think you can live with that?”

  “No. Yes. No. I mean…” Damn it, what was he asking? She couldn’t think straight with him wrapped around her. And she had a sneaky suspicion he knew it.

  She struggled against him and felt oddly disappointed when he released her.

  His slow grin kicked the thud of her heart into double time. Christ, he was up to something, and why was he reaching for her hand, his eyes never leaving hers?

  Faster than a striking cobra, he slapped one half of a pair of handcuffs around her wrist, the other bracelet around his own.

  “For God’s sake, Ballentyne, what the hell are you doing?”

  “Whatever it takes. The kissing you into submission comes next, just so you know.”

  “I don’t even know what I’m supposed to be submitting to. I thought you wanted an explanation.”

  “I do. The cuffs are backup in case you run.”