A Match for Celia

by Gina Wilkins

  “Celia, you have to understand how incredible this all sounds. These are my friends you’re talking about, my employees. You really expect me to believe they’ve been involved in something like this without my knowledge?”

  “I know how it sounds. But it’s the truth,” Celia said quietly, laying a battered hand on his arm. She looked up into his eyes without smiling, willing him to believe her. “It’s the truth,” she repeated.

  He started to shake his head, studied her expression, then seemed to slump. “You really mean this, don’t you?”

  “I’m sorry, Damien. I know it hurts you.”

  He sighed and covered her hand with his own. “What do you want me to do?”

  Celia was just about to suggest that they call Reed in when she heard a noise behind them. She and Damien turned at the same time.

  Mark Chenault was standing in the doorway to Damien’s living room. And he was holding a gun.

  “Mark?” Damien looked stunned. “What are you doing?”

  “I’ve gotten myself in a bind, boss,” Mark replied, sounding oddly breezy and matter-of-fact, considering the circumstances. “I find myself in need of your assistance.”

  “Since when do you ask for my help at gunpoint? What the hell is going on here, Mark?”

  Chenault motioned with the gun toward Celia. “You can blame your two-timing little girlfriend, here. And her new boyfriend. You really shouldn’t have invited her here this week, Damien. I tried to tell you it wasn’t a good time.”

  “You said you thought we were too busy to be entertaining,” Damien snapped. “You didn’t say anything about selling guns.”

  Chenault flicked Celia a cool glance. “So she’s been talking to you. And you believe her?”

  Damien looked from Mark’s face to the dark, deadly weapon in his hand. “Looks like I’m going to have to believe her.”

  Aware that Reed and Kyle were outside, Celia tried to stay calm. Reed would do something, she told herself, no longer in doubt that he would know how to handle this. She remembered the ease with which he had overtaken Bennett and Perrelli. Whatever it was he did for a living, he was no mild-mannered tax accountant.

  “What is it you want, Mark?” Damien asked, and there was so much pain in his voice that Celia automatically laid a sympathetic hand on his arm. She knew this must be hurting him. Damien placed a very high value on loyalty and friendship.

  “I want your helicopter here in less than half an hour. I want your plane and your pilot on standby to take me to Central America. And I want enough cash to support me in style once I get there. You can arrange all that for me, Damien.” Mark flashed a smile that made Celia shiver. “It’s so nice to have money and power available for one’s every whim, isn’t it?”

  He looked at Celia then. “You really were very stupid to choose a bumbling cop over our wealthy friend here, Celia. Damien would have given you anything you wanted, for as long as his interest in you lasted—which, I’m afraid, wouldn’t have been long. What’s your cop friend got to offer, hmm? A federal employee’s salary? Doesn’t run to Mercedes and luxury vacations, I’m afraid—especially if he’s one of that rare breed known as an honest cop.”

  “He is,” Celia said. She didn’t even know for certain that Reed was a cop—or a federal agent, or any of the other possibilities that had crossed her mind during the past half hour—but if he was, she was sure he was an honest one. “I don’t care how much money he has.”

  “Then you’re an idiot,” Chenault said contemptuously. “Money is the only thing that matters in this world. With it, you’re everyone’s best friend. You can’t do anything bad enough that you can’t buy forgiveness, can you, Damien? Without money, you’re just someone’s ‘valued assistant.’”

  The scorn in his final words made Damien flinch beneath Celia’s hand. “You were more than that to me, Mark,” Damien protested. “You were my friend.”

  “Yeah, right. You were the one who had the big money, the pictures in the paper, the invitations to the White House and the bedrooms of the most beautiful women in the world. Money is power, and I wanted my share. I wanted to be the head of my own organization.”

  “And you were using my business as cover.” Damien sounded thoroughly appalled.

  Mark shrugged. “Only when it was convenient. And the location you’d scouted out in central Arkansas was very convenient. Those radical survivalists love that area—and they were willing to pay very well to buy the weapons they thought they needed to defend their turf. All I had to do was plug in to a few connections in stolen military weapons, set up a few meetings on the side when you made your boring real-estate deals and cash in the profits. But you had to screw everything up. You had to bring her into it. Damn it, Damien, she isn’t half the woman you usually go after. She’s passable, but hardly world class.”

  “Shut up, Mark.” For the first time since she’d known him, Damien sounded dangerous to Celia. There was raw fury overlying the pain in his eyes now.

  Mark snorted. “Still fancy yourself in love with her, Damien? Even when she’s screwing someone else? God, how did you ever get where you were without my help?”

  “I was doing just fine before I hired you,” Damien replied coldly. “And I’ll still be doing just fine when you’re behind bars.”

  Mark’s eyes narrowed. Celia tightened her fingers on Damien’s arm, warningly.

  Mark looked at Celia. The indulgent affability had left his voice completely now. He sounded hard. Mean. “Where’s your boyfriend? Your other boyfriend? The cop?”

  She met his eyes without flinching. “I don’t know. He ran off and left me behind.”

  “I don’t believe you. He’s somewhere nearby, isn’t he?”

  Celia had to make an effort not to glance toward the slightly opened door. “I don’t know,” she repeated.

  Mark motioned again with the gun. “Come here.”

  Damien quickly covered Celia’s hand with his own. “Stay where you are, Celia.”

  Mark coolly aimed the weapon at Damien’s forehead. He flicked Celia only a glance. “I said come here.”

  “What are you going to do?” Celia asked, hesitating. She didn’t want Damien hurt, and she had no question that Mark would pull the trigger. But she didn’t want to blindly step into danger, either. She just knew Reed and Kyle were making their plans. If only she could stall long enough to give them a chance to rescue her.

  “I’m just providing myself with a little insurance, as they say in the gangster movies,” Mark said with a twisted smile.

  “Do I need to point out that it rarely works in the gangster movies?” Damien asked quietly, still holding Celia’s hand.

  Mark shrugged. “It’s not like I’ve got any other choice,” he said bitterly. “Get over here, Celia. Damien, you get on the phone. Start making the arrangements. And maybe you’d better let everyone know that I’m not fooling around here. If one thing goes wrong, she’s dead. And so are you.”

  Celia and Damien didn’t move. They looked at each other, neither certain what to do.

  Reed? Where are you? What are you doing? Celia hoped her mental message somehow made its way to him.

  An ominous clicking sound came from the gun. Celia had watched enough of those gangster films they’d mentioned to recognize the sound. Mark was prepared to shoot Damien, and then proceed from there.

  “Now, Celia,” Mark said.

  Celia pulled her hand from Damien’s and took a step toward Mark.

  Damien reached out automatically to stop her. She shrugged off his hand. “Be careful, Damien,” she whispered, her eyes locked with Mark’s.

  “Good advice, Damien,” Mark mocked. “Be very careful.”

  The moment Celia stepped within reach, he grabbed her, his fingers digging brutally into her wrist as he pulled her in front of him. She stumbled, and he jerked her upright, bending her arm behind her as he did so. She couldn’t help gasping at the sharp pain in her twisted arm.

  Damien automatically m
oved toward them. Mark stopped him by holding the barrel of the gun to Celia’s forehead.

  “Do you really want to risk this, Damien?” he asked, and there was a new undercurrent of desperation in his voice.

  Celia knew it was important to keep him calm. Panic was much too dangerous when his unsteady finger was curled around the trigger. “I’m okay, Damien,” she said breathlessly, trying to ignore the throbbing in the arm Mark still held behind her.

  “Make the calls,” Mark said, motioning sharply toward the phone. “Get the helicopter here. Hope you’re not as afraid of helicopters as you are of parachutes, Celia,” he added derisively. “You’ll be going with me for the first part of the trip, of course.”

  Even though she knew Reed would intercede before that became necessary—she simply had to believe it—Celia felt a cold knot of fear settle deep inside her.

  The telephone was on a small walnut writing desk at the far side of the room. Damien approached it slowly. He laid his hand on the instrument without picking it up. “Mark,” he said, his expression beseeching. “You have to know this is foolish. Give yourself up now, before something tragic happens.”

  “As far as I’m concerned, something tragic has already happened. I’ve failed.” Mark spoke with bitter self-recrimination.

  Damien started to say something else, but a muffled sound from outside made Mark jerk in that direction, swinging Celia with him. The movement twisted her arm even higher behind her. She cried out and instinctively bent to ease the pressure, pulling downward on Mark’s hand.

  “Damn it, stand up!” he snapped, and the panic was more evident now. “Make the call, Damien.”

  Celia tried to cooperate, but her awkward position, combined with the shooting pain from her arm, made her clumsy. She stumbled again.

  His control slipping rapidly, Mark hit her with the back of his gun hand, almost snapping her neck backward. “Stand up!” he bellowed.

  Still reeling from the blow, Celia tried to regain her balance, but her vision was clouded, her ears ringing. She could feel her knees buckling. She slumped against Mark’s arm, pulling him off balance with her.

  “Damn it!” He pulled back his other hand to hit her again.

  Damien threw himself forward. He hit them with his full weight just as Celia opened her mouth to warn him away.

  The three of them went down in a tangle of flailing limbs. Celia heard the door burst open, heard Reed shouting something, but she couldn’t quite make out the words.

  And then she heard the shot.

  Someone landed solidly, heavily on top of her. And then there seemed to be people everywhere, shouting, running, grappling.

  Celia opened her eyes. She couldn’t even remember when she’d closed them. And she saw who lay across her, his eyes closed, his skin deathly pale.

  “Damien?” She pushed at him, frantically trying to get him to respond. “Damien!”

  Large, strong hands helped her free herself. “Celia.” Reed’s voice sounded strange, hoarse as he ran his hands over her. “Are you all right? Have you been hit?”

  “No,” she said, shaking her head quickly, ignoring the various aches and pains throughout her body. Her attention now was all for Damien, who lay crumpled beside her, his left shoulder covered with blood. She stared at that spreading stain in horror. “Oh, Reed, he’s been shot. Please. Help him.”

  Reed dropped his hand from her arm. Unencumbered, she reached out to her wounded friend. “Damien? Damien, can you hear me? Oh, please, say something.”

  She couldn’t bear it if Damien died because of her.

  Reed was on his feet now. “Get an ambulance,” he shouted to someone. “Now!”

  Some distant part of Celia’s mind noted the innate command in his voice, and the way everyone else in the room seemed to snap to attention in response to it.

  “It’s going to be all right, Damien,” she whispered, her hand on his clammy, pale cheek. “Reed’s taking care of everything now.”

  She didn’t know if Damien could hear her, but the words gave her courage.

  The emergency medical technicians arrived with admirable speed. Celia was pulled out of the way as they bent over Damien, who was partially awake and groaning now. The front of her shirt was stained with his blood, and there was a trickle of something warm and sticky from a lump on the side of her head. But they were alive, she reminded herself. Mark had been taken away, and she and Damien would be all right.

  She said a quick prayer of thanks, adding a plea that Damien would recover quickly. She wouldn’t even allow herself to consider the possibility that he might not recover at all.

  The EMTs briskly, efficiently lifted Damien onto a gurney. They were moving toward the door when he spoke. “Celia?”

  She rushed to his side and took his hand. “I’m here, Damien.”

  “You’re all right?” His voice was weak, his lips stiff and rather blue, but his eyes looked clear, coherent, giving her hope that his injuries weren’t immediately life-threatening.

  “I’m fine,” she reassured him. “And you will be, too. Let them take care of you now, Damien.”

  His eyelids drooped. “Tell that cop—”

  She bent closer, straining to hear. “What?”

  “Tell him—take better care of you after this.”

  She kissed his cold cheek. “I can take care of myself, Alexander,” she murmured. “You do the same, you hear?”

  “We have to go, ma’am,” one of the medical technicians said.

  Celia stepped out of the way.

  “I want to ride with him,” Maris Cathcart insisted, her eyes locked on her employer’s face. She had arrived a few minutes earlier, hastily dressed in a misbuttoned shirt and slacks. Evan had been right behind her, wearing nothing but a pair of jeans. Celia had gotten the impression that Damien’s two secretaries had been together when they’d been summoned. Maybe that would amuse her later, when she remembered how to smile.

  “You’re in charge, Evan,” Damien murmured just as he and Maris were hustled out of the room.

  The secretary straightened his bare shoulders and lifted his chin, assuming an immediate air of command. “Someone tell me what the hell has happened in here,” he said, sounding so much like his beloved employer that Celia was wearily amused.

  She left others to bring Evan up to date. She turned to find Reed.

  He was sitting on Damien’s soft leather couch, his shoulders slumped, his eyes closed. A gun lay loosely in his right hand, apparently forgotten.

  A battered, weary warrior, Celia found herself thinking. No one would mistake him now for a mild-mannered tax accountant.

  Kyle was bent over him, her sleek red head close to his as she examined the back of his head where Bennett had hit him. Celia’s stomach clenched. They looked so comfortable together, she thought, her teeth digging into her lower lip. So close.

  And then Reed looked up. His eyes met hers. He pushed Kyle’s hand aside and shoved himself to his feet.

  “You’re bleeding,” he said, touching gentle fingers to the oozing lump at the side of her head.

  “I’m okay. It’s just a bump where Mark hit me.”

  A muscle jumped in Reed’s jaw. “I should have killed him,” he said, the dramatic words spoken in an oddly calm, matter-of-fact tone.

  “You almost did,” Kyle reminded him, then glanced at Celia. “I unwrapped his fingers from the guy’s throat and sent him to make sure you were all right. I’ve never seen my partner quite so emotional making an arrest.”

  Reed groaned. “Tell me someone read the guy his rights,” he said, as though the thought had just occurred to him.

  “Except for your performance, everything went strictly by the book,” Kyle assured him with a note of suppressed amusement. “He won’t get off on technicalities.”

  Reed appeared relieved.

  Kyle looked from Reed’s wounded head to Celia’s injured face. “You two look terrible. Come on, we’ll find someone to check you out.”

>   “I want to make sure Damien’s okay,” Celia insisted. “Can you drive us to the hospital where he’s been taken?”

  “Yeah. Let me make a few quick calls first.”

  For the first time, Celia realized the three of them were alone in Damien’s living room. She didn’t know where Evan had ushered the others. The sudden silence was startling in comparison to the earlier chaos.

  Celia looked down at her filthy, bloodstained clothing. “I want to change,” she said, thinking of the clean clothing right across the hallway. “I’ll just be a minute.”

  Reed was massaging the back of his neck. “You can clean up later,” he said.

  She plucked distastefully at her shirt. “I want to change now.”

  “Go with her, Reed. Make sure she doesn’t keel over or anything. This will take me about five minutes,” Kyle said, phone in hand.

  Reed didn’t seem to care for being on the receiving end of orders for a change. But he nodded stiffly and turned to Celia. “All right. Let’s go.”

  She wasn’t feeling particularly subservient at the moment, either, but she knew it would be a waste of breath to protest his curt tone. She turned without another word and headed for her suite. Reed followed close at her heels.

  Chapter Fifteen

  The lights were still on in Celia’s bedroom. The bedclothes were still tangled and twisted. She swallowed hard, remembering that she and Reed had shared that bed only hours before. She didn’t know what time it was now—an hour or so before dawn, probably—but everything had changed during this eventful night.

  It was hard to believe so much had happened in so short a time. That her perceptions of him had been altered so dramatically since he’d left her bed.

  Suddenly shy, she avoided looking at him as she quickly opened a drawer and pulled out a clean T-shirt. “There’s an ice maker in the bar in the other room,” she said. “Why don’t you put an ice pack on your head while I change? I promise to hurry.”