by Alison Kent
He saw the reflection in the lenses of the other man's sunglasses, accepted the silent but smiling salute as the agent touched a finger to his forehead before throttling up. And as he did, Julian caught a glimpse of the ring on his finger.
A ring worn only by graduates of the United States Naval Academy.
Thirteen
South Miami, Saturday, 9:30 p.m.
Katrina sat on her balcony's rough pebbled surface, the sharp edges biting through her sweatpants into her butt, her hands tied to the railing behind her, her foot throbbing like the head of a child's squeeze toy, while inside, Benny Rivers trashed every room in her house.
Her split lip tasted like blood and still ached from where he had backhanded her hours ago. Eyes closed, she banged her head against the iron bars behind her because her position didn't allow that she kick herself in the ass for ever getting involved with Peter Deacon in the first place.
At least she finally knew why she was going to die. It made the idea of ending this very bad weekend with a trip to the afterlife easier to take. Okay. That was a lie. She was scared shitless but had no more tears to cry. She'd cried them all out over Julian.
Or so she'd thought. . . but here they came again. Oh God. Huge tears running unchecked in rivers down her cheeks, soaking the neckband of her T-shirt, which had only just started to dry. She saw him lying on the ground, blood pooling dark and thick and red around him.
How could anything hurt this badly? So very very badly. Losing the man she wanted in her life before she'd had a chance to know him. Or to tell him. Dear God, she sobbed, her stomach so tightly wound she had to fight the burn of the nausea threatening to double her over. What must her mother have gone through when her father had died?
She stopped her self-induced concussion and stared up at the stars, thinking of what a hero her father had been, how he'd come to her rescue all those times when she'd been threatened with disfigurement by the girls who didn't want her hanging around their boyfriends. Or ignored by the teams who wouldn't choose her to play because girls who looked like she did couldn't throw a ball.
She missed her father so very much. She missed her mother, too, and couldn't believe she would never see her again. Would never have a chance to say good-bye. And now her mother would have to hear about what happened from halfway around the world. This was all so incredibly unfair. So very wrong.
She flinched at the sound of more glass breaking inside. She'd always loved the privacy her condo's balcony offered, how she was able to enjoy her evenings out here, unwinding with a cold drink and a good book, but right now she wished she lived anywhere else.
Closing her eyes, she did her best to put the horror of the present from her mind and think back to the cottage, imagine living there with Julian. Loving there with Julian.
Until meeting him, she had never believed anything more than attraction happened at first sight. Now she knew the truth. How two souls destined to share their lives knew it the moment they met.
And in that second, with that thought, at the very meeting of the two, her eyes flew open, her stomach quit aching, her mind began to spin.
She had to get free. She had to get back to the safe house. She had to find Julian. See for herself if he truly was dead, or whether he was still lying on the ground, abandoned, alone, and waiting for help.
The thought of him injured and helpless. Hanging on. Hoping. She had to get to him. She refused to sit here and go quietly into that good night without seeing for herself that he wasn't alive.
She had to get loose, get to her gun, and rattled the rails behind her. "Hey, Benny. Come here, will you? I need to talk to you."
A minute later, the short bulky man loomed over her in the open sliding glass doorway. "You better be ready to say something I want to hear."
She nodded, didn't even have to fake the tremors in her voice. "Peter gave me a flash card. He told me to keep it safe. I think it's what you want."
Benny snorted. "And you're just now remembering it? I don't think so, sister. This sounds like some sort of game to me."
"It's not a game. I swear." But it was. A game of playing for time. Of dealing hands of lies. Of dodging and feinting and rebounding from more of his heavy-handed blows. She swallowed hard, knowing what was coming. "I carry it in my wallet."
He stared down at her as if processing what she'd said, then turned to look inside. "I've turned this place over and haven't seen a wallet anywhere."
She swallowed again and braced herself, wondering if it would be a fist or a foot, praying for neither. His insults were so much easier to take. "It's not here. I left it back at the motel."
His head swiveled back slowly, like a piece of heavy equipment operating in slow motion. And then he reached into his pocket, pulled out his handkerchief, and gagged her. "Now why the hell would you do something that stupid? No, don't answer. Let me tell you. You're a stupid female. Damn breeding bitch."
He kicked out with all the strength of his bull-in-a-china-shop bulk behind the blow. She cowered, cringed, but it didn't do a bit of good. He aimed the toe of his shoe at the ball of her bandaged foot, and she swore she felt every one of Julian's stitches split open.
She screamed, the sounds absorbed and muffled by the fabric ball in her mouth. She willed the nausea down while working to dislodge the gag with her tongue. Choking to death was not part of the plan.
The click of Benny's knife had her screwing her eyes all the way shut and doubling over. Instead of stabbing her in the back, however, he reached down and sliced through her bonds before jerking her to her feet.
She stumbled inside, hopping on one foot, dragging the other behind her like some nursery rhyme sheep. Mary? Bo Peep? She couldn't remember. And the fact that she'd tried to spoke to her state of mind.
Looking around at the devastation of her things, she leaned her weight against her sliced and shredded sofa, rubbing the circulation back into her wrists, unable to care about anything beyond getting away.
Benny slid the patio door closed and charged into the room. She glanced quickly away from the hutch on that same wall, thankful that he didn't seem to have found the hiding place where she kept her handgun.
He grabbed her upper arm and shoved her forward so hard she nearly stumbled to her knees. "Let's go."
She tried to talk around the handkerchief, ask him to let her change her clothes, go to the bathroom, wash her face— anything to put him off from leaving before she could get her hands on her gun. But all that came out of her mouth were gagging, muffled sounds.
"Yeah, yeah. You keep talking," he said, dragging her down the tiled foyer toward the door. "And I'll keep enjoying not listening to your fat trap of a mouth."
He pulled open the door and jolted to a stop, brought up short by the gun barrel inches from his face. Katrina's heart thundered in her chest.
"Going somewhere, Benny?" asked the dark-skinned man holding the very big handgun with the futuristic laser sight and extra long silencer on the end. "Or should I say, going somewhere without me?"
Benny jerked her in front of his body like a shield, his meaty hands wrapped around both of her wrists where he held them in the small of her back. "Get the hell out of here, Ezra. This is between me and her."
"Wrong, Rivers," said another voice from the hallway, a smoothly rough voice Katrina would've recognized anywhere, one that had her knees shaking to bear her weight. "This is between me and you."
She cried out with joy and sagged against Benny's hold as Julian stepped around the corner. He was pale, his shirt matted with wet and dried blood, his mouth bracketed by lines of what had to be excruciating pain.
But he was alive, and she cried again. Relief, fright, hope. She couldn't define any emotion but love.
"Let her go, Rivers," Julian demanded, never meeting her gaze. "It's over."
"The hell it is." Benny hefted her up as best he could— she was four inches taller and not giving him any help—and lugged her dead weight back the way he'd come,
pressing the tip of his knife blade to the base of her throat as incentive.
Her eyes went wide with the sting of the prick. She felt the warmth of the blood trickling over her skin, grimaced as Benny tightened his hold and growled in her ear. "Walk, bitch. I'll cut you open to your gullet if you don't."
He backed her into the wall beside the balcony exit and stopped, breathing hotly into her ear as he ordered, "Open the goddamn door."
She reached around his bulk and slid the door open, her gaze locked on Julian where he stood in the foyer's shadows.
Ezra had moved into the living room, his gun aimed at Benny, the red dot of the laser hitting Katrina in the eyes as Benny jerked her around. "The girl isn't part of this, Rivers. You know that. You fucked up. Peter found out. Now you have to deal."
"Forget it, Ezra," Benny yelled, the knife slacking, his voice cracking once as it did.
That was enough for Katrina. She reached for the edge of the hutch as if needing the support, flicked the switch hidden under the center molding, and held her breath as the lock on the sliding drawer released.
She felt the pull of Julian's gaze then, and looked over to see the subtle, imploring shake of his head. He could beg. He could demand. It didn't matter.
She wouldn't survive Benny's knife or the fall from the balcony to the ground. She knew she would be facing one or the other once he dragged her out the door. She had to do what she had to do to save her own life.
She took a deep breath, counted to three, drove her elbow into Benny's midsection. He grunted, loosened his hold. She grabbed for her weapon, swung it down behind her, and fired.
His howl of pain and rage took the roof off the room. She dove for the floor. Ezra fired. Benny went all the way down. And then Julian was there on his knees, helping her pull the gag from her mouth.
"Oh, God. Oh, God. You're alive." She touched his hair, his face, his neck and chest and hands. All the places she could get to while avoiding his gun-shot shoulder. "I thought he killed you. I thought you were dead." Her voice was a wet soggy mess. "I just found you and I thought you were already dead."
His big broad hand came up to cup her nape. He pressed his forehead to hers. "Shh, Katrina, sweetheart. I'm here. I'm fine. I love you."
"Oh my God, Julian!" She bawled because she couldn't do anything else. Her chest ached and her throat burned and her mouth would barely work around the words she'd been holding back far too long already. "I love you, too."
"Yeah. I know that part," he said, and she couldn't decide whether to kiss him once or kiss him forever.
And so she kissed him twice, holding him tightly as they helped one another back to their feet.
"How did you get here? What happened at the safe house? And who is he?" Arms around Julian's waist, she nodded toward the mysterious Ezra. "Should we call the cops?"
"No cops. I'll take care of it," Julian said, and she didn't need to know anything more.
Stuffing portable equipment of the medical sort back into his copious pockets, Ezra got to his feet from where he'd been kneeling next to the unconscious Benny, checking vitals, tying tourniquets, saving her would-be killer's life.
He dusted his hands together, straightened the bandana wrapped around his dreads. "You wouldn't happen to have a wheeled duffel big enough, would you?"
He wanted her help with Rivers? The sound that came out of her mouth was half gasp, half laugh. "For him?"
"Yeah." Ezra shrugged as if he were discussing a bale of hay. "I can carry him out of here, but getting him down the dock and into the boat might be more tricky."
She didn't care. She wanted him gone. "I don't have a duffel but I do have a bicycle trailer."
Julian turned to her. "You do?"
She nodded. "I even have a bike to go with it. They're in my storage unit." When both men stared at her silently, expectantly, she shrugged. "I'll get the key."
She hurried to the kitchen, grabbed the key from the hooked plaque inside the pantry door. It was when she turned to go back that she found Julian blocking her path.
"Who is that man?"
Julian reached up, stroked her hair back from her face. "He saved my life. And he's going to take Rivers out of here. That's all that matters."
It wasn't all that mattered. She wanted to know. Needed to know. But the details could wait.
She reached up and kissed him, gently telling him with her lips how much she loved him, and how exquisitely happy she was that he was alive.
"Now that is what matters," she said once she'd kissed him thoroughly, grinning as he removed her other earring, his eyes twinkling as he did. "Okay, okay. That, too."
He hooked his good elbow around her neck; she wrapped both arms around his waist, never wanting to let him out of her reach again. They headed back to the living room where Ezra had trussed Benny like a rodeo calf with a cabled rope he'd pulled out of his magic pants.
He grabbed hold of a section he'd left for a handle and dragged his load to the door. She nodded at Julian when he glanced down, then stepped back and crossed her arms over her chest.
She waited while he talked to the other man, watched while he walked him to the door. He left Ezra there with a salute and a pat on the back, and, as she watched, dropped her spare earring deep into one of Ezra's pockets.
Epilogue
South Miami, Sunday, 4:30 A.M.
"I'm really a much better housekeeper than this," Katrina said hours later, cocooned in her bedroom quilt on top of her mattress, which looked like it had suffered the wrath of a crazed saber-toothed cat.
Once Ezra had dragged Benny out the door, she and Julian had put what they could of her bath and bed to rights. They'd cleaned up together, doctoring cuts, changing dressings— her foot, his shoulder, which was in much worse shape, but for which he refused to see a doctor—checking wounds for infection, downing antibiotics from the life-saving first aid kit he never went anywhere without.
Having her hands on him then as well as now meant as much—if not more—than being alive for him to get his hands on her. She loved being alive to feel his skin, the tremor of weakness he'd tried to hide, the way he had finally and truly relaxed for the first time since she'd known him.
She laughed at that, realizing that she'd known him for less than forty-eight hours, when it felt like he'd been part of her life since the day she'd been born. Well, not quite that long, she admitted, admitting as well that she wasn't ready to give up the dramatic giddiness. Delaying a return to reality as long as possible held immense appeal.
"What day does Maribel come anyway?" Facing her, Julian snuggled deeper into the covers. "This place is a dump."
"Oh, thanks." She started to tickle him, stopped because she sensed how much pain he was in, and stroked her hand down his chest instead, threading her fingers through the dark silky hair that swirled there. "I'll call her later and see about getting your car back."
"Okay."
"Uh, and check into replacing hers?"
He nodded, stroked the hand of his good arm over the curve of the breast he could reach until she shivered all the way to her toes. "I'll take care of it. Business write-off and all that."
She would've glared at him, but his eyes were closed, making it a waste of good pique on her part. Besides, he was fairly mellow—a situation she doubted would come around again any time soon considering how he was always so "on"—and she wasn't above using his down time to pry.
"Julian?"
"Katrina?"
"Thank you."
"For?"
"Saving my life," she whispered.
His fingers, resting on the mattress, teased her navel. "All part of the job, ma'am."
"I know," she said, not even sure she could put what she was feeling into words. "But I hate thinking that you went above and beyond because of me."
His hand stopped moving at all then. His lashes fluttered; his lids opened slowly. The look in his eyes, even in her barely lighted bedroom, could never be mistaken for anything
but what it was.
Julian Samms was mad. "What the hell are you talking about?"
She drew her own fists close between her breasts. "Just that I wasn't thinking. When I went out to the car. Or, I was thinking, but only about my foot. Not about our situation. I had gotten so wrapped up in what we'd done"—she couldn't believe it; she was blushing—"that for that one moment, I didn't even stop to consider the where and the why of being with you."
It was several seconds before he answered. Several seconds during which she feared confessing her alarming lack of vigilance would be the death of the very fantasy—Julian and Katrina sitting in the tree, k-i-s-s-i-n-g—that had been the impetus for the destruction all around them.
When he did speak, however, his words, but especially the emotion behind them, were not at all what she'd expected to hear.
"I know," he whispered, his voice rough, rife with a sense of failure. "I'd gotten sidetracked, too."
She blinked; how could he think he had failed? "You were?"
And it was then that she realized he wasn't mad at her at all. He was mad at himself. And his sigh, when it came, was heavy with it. "I heard you go out the door and wanted to kick my own ass. Not for letting you distract me, but for being distracted because I knew better. I know better."
Uh-oh, she thought, tingles of alarm centered in the small of her back.
Julian went on. "But later, on the ride back with Ezra, I realized it wasn't the fact that I'd let down my guard that was eating at me. It was the reason why that I couldn't get over. The same reason I'm here now."
"Which is?" she asked, almost unable to turn the words boiling in her throat into sounds. Please, please, please, God. Don't let him go.
"This isn't easy for me, Katrina," he said, taking a deep breath. "Admitting that I'm not enough by myself. That being on my own isn't how I want to live. That I need someone else with me."
Ob, God. Oh, God. She didn't know what to think. What to say. How to respond. Especially when she swore she couldn't tell if he was the one with misty eyes or if she just wasn't seeing things straight.
