by Cherry Adair
Judas Priest. Lurch had her in a headlock, his sharp, deadly knife at her pale throat. "I'll cut her if you come any closer." He laid the sharp edge against the frantic pounding at the base of her throat. "Drop your weapon. I'll slice her into ribbons so thin she'll look like a maypole. Back off."
Jake locked eyes with Lurch. He took a step and stopped. "Touch her with that, and you'll never be dead enough."
"Thought you didn't care about her?"
"That's the difference between us, Lurch. I don't have to care about someone not to want them dead," Jake said disdainfully. "First you have to have me held down so you could beat me up, and now you hide behind a woman?" He snorted in disgust, keeping his focus on Lurch's eyes for any sign of movement.
"All the money in the world didn't help you become any less a coward, did it? What are you going to do now?" Jake sneered. "The second she drops I'll have you. There's no backup."
Marnie didn't move. Jake managed another two steps before Lurch spoke again. "I could take you if I wanted to," he spat, his fist bunched tightly in Marnie's hair, pulling her off balance. "Tell you what. In the spirit of friendship I'll trade you the woman for the lair."
"Hardly a fair trade," Jake told him coldly, taking another step. "My life's work for a woman?" He raised the Walther another notch. "Let her go. This has nothing to do with the girl." For a second he allowed his gaze to drop to Marnie's face. There wasn't a vestige of color except for the blazing blue of her eyes.
"You two are doing a lot of talking," she said with barely a quiver in her voice. "Why don't you just shoot him, Jake, and get this over with?" With that, she let her knees buckle.
For a split second she hung by her hair alone, clutched in Lurch's fist. Surprise and her body weight threw him off balance.
Jake fired two shots so fast they sounded like one. Marnie dropped and rolled; the knife went one way, Lurch the other.
Jake closed the distance in four angry strides and grabbed Lurch around the throat. He hauled him upright. He'd aimed low. Shoulder, upper thigh. Blood oozed out of both entry and exit wounds. Lurch wouldn't be doing any running.
"Couldn't do it, could you?" Lurch sneered, holding a hand over his thigh. He grimaced. "Couldn't off a friend."
Out of the corner of his eye, Jake saw Marnie stagger to her feet. He felt beneath Lurch's shoulder holster for the strip of plastic handcuff and quickly secured his wrists behind his back.
Marnie came up beside him as he pulled the cuffs tight. "Now what?" he asked as she stepped right up to Lurch.
"Now I want to hit him some more!"
She rubbed her smarting scalp, then landed a satisfying punch to Lurch's nose before he could jerk his head out of the way. Blood spurted over her hand. She didn't seem to notice. She socked the man in the stomach.
"Get her off me. The bitch is crazy."
Jake stepped back. "Have at it, tiger."
She slammed Lurch's shin with her sturdy Timberlines. Lurch cringed, but there was nowhere for him to go. She kept up a nice steady rhythm: kick, punch, kick, kick.
For a few moments Jake enjoyed the sight of her working off her fear. The adrenaline was still surging through her. She needed to vent it. Her damp hair flew wildly about her shoulders as she danced around Lurch, jabbing, chopping. A fierce look of concentration tightened the skin on her cheekbones. But she was shivering so hard, her face so pale, Jake felt compelled to end it.
To expedite matters, Jake inserted, "May I?" and punched out the man who used to be his best friend. Lurch, who was doing his best to dodge the wild woman hopping and jabbing at him, didn't see it coming. His eyes widened for a second, then he dropped to Jake's feet like a rock.
Jake put a hand on Marnie's chest to halt her tirade. "That's enough."
She dropped her fists and shook her head like a terrier, staring at him blankly for a second.
"Don't," Jake told her, "ever do that to me again."
"Do what?" she panted, eyebrows winged. "Untie you and save your butt?"
Jake surprised himself with the intensity of his fury. He grabbed the front of her jacket. "Scare the crap out of me!"
Her eyes were huge in her white face as she looked up at him. Her lower lip trembled. She swayed on her feet.
Jake hauled her into his arms. "You're a damn good fighter. I'm glad I have you on my side. But Judas Priest, woman, I thought I'd lost you." He buried his face against her damp hair so she wouldn't know how choked his voice was. "I saw the chopper go up in flames…"
"One of the bad guys wanted to go in my place, I think. He pushed me out of the helicopter." She wound her arms around his neck, pressing her face into his shoulder. She shook like a leaf in a high wind.
Jake held her lightweight body tightly against his, lifting her off the ground to kiss her hard and fast. She kissed him back feverishly, looking a little shell-shocked when he pulled back.
"There's still at least one more out there. Go stand near the fire and keep warm. I'm going to secure this piece of crap, then we need to contact someone to get us out of here."
She touched his lips with just the tips of her cold fingers and smiled. "You won't get any argument out of me on that one."
He loosened his grip a fraction until her toes touched the ground. She grinned up at him. He cupped her cold face between his hands. God, she was so soft, so sweet. So alive.
At knee level, Lurch groaned.
Jake snagged the front of Marnie's jacket in his fist, drawing her up against his body as he kissed her again, short and sweet. Then he bent to grab the other man by the neckline of his suit.
Marnie gave Lurch an evaluating glance. "I think he's choking."
"No, he isn't." Jake shook the man until he groaned again. "See? He can breathe just fine." He gave Lurch a good shake when the man twitched. "Go get warm. I'll be right with you."
Shaking her head, Marnie limped over to the ruin of Jake's cabin. The closer she got, the warmer the air felt against her cold cheeks and the more she shook.
Every last ounce of energy seemed to drain out of her, and she felt sick to her stomach. She sank to her knees on the wet ground and wheezed raggedly.
Jake's ex-friend screamed obscenities as Jake dragged him over to the tree stump and propped him up against it. Their voices blurred and droned as she dropped her head to her knees and took several deep, shuddering breaths. The last few hours hardly seemed real.
Jake shouted something in her direction. It sounded like,
"Are you all right?" She lifted a hand to show she was at least still breathing.
Marnie looked at her clenched hands curled on her knees, saw Lurch's blood there, and picked up a handful of soil. Like Lady Macbeth, she started scrubbing her hands like a madwoman. The soil was icy, not that muddy, and pretty ineffectual. She scrubbed harder, listening to the drone of the men's voices over the sound of her teeth chattering and the arrhythmic beat of her heart.
She desperately wanted Jake's arms around her. Preferably while they were lying in a steaming hot bath. She lifted dazed eyes to see what his ETA might be.
To her left moonlight glinted for just a second off metal. Her eyes shot from left to right. Goose bumps prickled the back of her neck, and she half stood, fumbling beneath her jacket to get to the back pocket of her jeans.
"Jake," she croaked.
He was bent over Lurch. He looked up at the sound of her voice and frowned.
The high ping of a bullet cut through the air. She heard Jake's shout of pain and pulled the little gun out of her pocket, firing it into the shadows under the tree without really aiming.
Jake started running toward her in slow motion. She kept her eyes fixed on the man who'd come out of the trees. The bad guy boldly stood, feet spread, weapon spitting bullets toward Jake.
Only Jake had his terrified gaze on her.
"Jake, eyes left—no, damn it, right!" Marnie screamed, already running to intercept. What the hell she hoped to do, she had no idea, but Jake was too busy running toward
her to notice what was happening.
Something small slammed into her shoulder. Seconds later she felt something hook in her hair. She paused for a nanosecond, then started sprinting toward Jake again. The bad guy blasted off another round of bullets toward Jake, who was running flat out to come between Marnie and the weapon.
Before she had time to think, Marnie took a running jump, knocking Jake over in a tangle of arms and legs. They fell hard, Marnie buried beneath the weight of Jake's huge body.
Dimly she heard another hail of fire, then someone yelling, "I got him." Jake's grip on her elbow was painful as he hauled her upright, his eyes midnight dark as they scanned her face.
"Jesus, Marnie! Are you all right?" He propped her back against his raised knee and searched her face, both visually and with his hands.
Terrible possibilities gripped her mind, including Jake being brave while he bled like a sieve from a million bullet holes. She tried to push his hands away, needing to do a tactile search of his body.
"Were you shot?" she demanded, out of breath and terrified. "Are you hit?"
Still holding her, Jake looked over his shoulder as four men wearing jeans and heavy jackets and carrying Uzis raced into the clearing. They pushed two sharpshooters ahead of them. Duchess was with them. She danced around the men before seeing Marnie and raced to her side. She circled Marnie and Jake, growling low in her throat, her tail waving.
Jake turned his head to look at the men as he helped Marnie to her feet. "What the hell is this? A frigging convention?"
"Brothers," she mumbled. Still woefully short of breath and feeling decidedly weird, she locked her spongy knees and managed to hobble upright.
"Derek, Michael, Kane, K-Kyle." It was a good thing Jake was still holding her upper arm.
"Your brothers'? Well, hell. Saved by the cavalry. Truss the son of a bitch," he called to them, "and keep an eye on the other one. I'll be right there." He let go of her arm and peered into her face. "Sure you're okay?"
"Peach—ahhh—"
Pain.
There was suddenly no room for anything else. She staggered, and then her knees seemed to melt. A ball of fire ripped through her, taking her breath and constricting her muscles. She clenched her eyes shut, swaying until gravity made the decision and she collapsed against the frozen earth, rolling to her side and curling her knees up to the pain.
Oh, God, it hurts.
Through a haze, she heard a mishmash of her brothers' and Jake's voices. Felt Jake's hands on her, then heard his roar of rage. She wanted to tell him not to yell, but it took every ounce of strength she had not to scream herself.
The sound of gunshots reverberated in her head. She panted, panicking when she couldn't draw a deep breath. "I'm suff-o-ca-ting."
"No, you are not," Jake said with awful calm.
She felt his hands on her, but it was as if her body had been injected full of novocaine.
"Just calm down. I have you, Marnie. I have…"
His words became jumbled, distant, confusing.
"Jake?" She panicked. "Jake?"
She forced her eyes open. Something warm ran in a ticklish stream down her face. She put a shaking hand up and then looked at her red, sticky, mud-encrusted fingers. "I'm bleeding." Her voice sounded thready, indignant.
Jake knelt beside her, his arm cradling her head and upper body. He wiped her face with fingers that shook. She winced.
And the blood kept coming.
"Look at me. That's right, good girl, keep looking at me."
Her glassy eyes stared into his. He saw her focus go, and his heart sped up.
"Here, Marnie. Keep those gorgeous blue eyes open for me." He wanted to draw the sharpness of the pain into himself. Her face below him blurred, and she yelped as his hands involuntarily gripped her harder.
"Keep looking at me, darling. You'll be okay. You have a head wound."
A bullet had skimmed through her hair. Head wounds bled a lot. He knew that. Oh, God…
She lay heavily across his arm. A small smile curved her pillowy lower lip. "Hmmm… darling?"
"Yeah, darling, sweetheart, love."
"Hmmm. Like th…" Her eyes totally lost focus again.
"Jake?" she whispered in a panicky little voice that tore out his heart.
"Right here."
"Hmmm." Marnie squeezed her eyes shut.
"Don't lose consciousness." His voice sounded as scared as he felt.
"Bossy," Marnie slurred. "Just a little b… blood. 'M okay."
"Damnit, I told you not to close your eyes."
"Never been shot before," she said numbly, struggling for breath. "Hurts." She pressed her face against his arm.
Her breathing didn't sound right. Panic? Worse?
"I'm sorry, sweetheart. So damned sorry. I can't believe you'd pull such a damn dumb stunt. I meant to talk to you about this lousy habit you have of saving my life."
"Worth… it…"
Moonlight glinted for a moment off something dark and liquid oozing through her jacket. He put pressure on her shoulder, and she tried to withdraw from the pain. "Not… not your… f…fault."
Pain swamped her like a red tidal wave. She clamped her lips together so she wouldn't cry out. Her face lost every vestige of color. "Sorry."
Icy sweat bathed his body, and he was numb with terror. Blood soaked the shoulder of her jacket and trickled from the head wound down her temple and the side of her face.
"Brother doc…"
"Which one of you is the doctor?" Jake snarled at the four men who'd come running the second she'd collapsed, stripping off their jackets as they ran.
"Right here."
Jake looked up. He hadn't even noticed the man kneeling on her other side. The younger man was already systematically checking her.
"She's been off her Coumadin for four days," Jake said flatly, lifting her slightly as her brothers bundled her from head to toe in their jackets. He eased her back down. She felt as light and insubstantial as thistledown.
The doctor brother shot him a look, then went back to what he was doing. "Scalp wound, superficial. Here, Kane, press this right here—no, a little to the left—yeah. Hold that. Good thing you have such a hard head, little sis," he said in a completely different tone, then looked at his brothers.
"Her hard head deflected the bullet. It'll bleed, but other than some hair loss, no big deal. Derek, get something to elevate her legs."
Kyle felt her pulse, his lips thinned. "I'm going to open your jacket, poppet. It'll be cold for a minute while I check you out."
Jake squeezed her hand as her brother undid her jacket and checked her shoulder as she lay limp and unresisting. It worried the hell out of him. A second wound…
Terror wrapped icy tentacles around his heart. Marnie. Marnie.
"Decreased breathing sounds on this side." Kyle glanced up briefly. They all got it. Her lung was perforated. "Here's the point of entry… Sorry, poppet, stay with me."
"Okay, pal," he told Jake, "you can put the pressure back. Yeah, nice steady pressure… right here. Good.
"There's deformity in her arm. The bullet must have ricocheted off the clavicle into the humerus. Thank God she has a radial pulse. Clavicle is broken. No, sis, put your hand down, you're all muddy. Why's she covered head to toe in mud? What the hell's going down here?"
The brother standing directly behind Jake spoke up quickly. "There'll be time later, Kyle. Cool it."
Kyle shot a quick, dangerous glance at Jake. "Keep that pressure steady." He carefully checked his sister's back. "No exit," he said grimly.
Jake closed his eyes on a prayer.
Marnie gasped for air like a goldfish out of its bowl.
The brothers paced, their voices a blurred drone. Lost in the terror of losing Marnie, he barely noticed them.
It should have been me. It should have been me.
She was going to die here. Before he could tell her…
"What are you doing here? How did you find us?" he asked as
one of the brothers took up another cloth and applied pressure to the wound on her scalp.
"Our father contacted us when she didn't answer her phone," the tallest one said, not looking at Jake as he switched places with Kyle so his brother could check her hips and legs.
Kyle's eyes met those of his brothers and he gave a negative shake of his head.
"We knew the bridges were out." The taller brother hooked Jake's gaze, and Jake knew he was speaking slowly and calmly so as not to scare the shit out of his sister. Jake figured he was scared enough for both of them.
"The weather held us off yesterday. We did a helo drop five hours ago and came looking. The gunshots helped pinpoint your location. Jesus, it's freezing out here. Kane, get a fire going. Derek, radio for help."
"I have an underground setup beneath the cabin." Jake didn't take his eyes off her face. In the moonlight her skin looked almost transparent, her lashes ominously still against her cheeks. "If we can clear some of the rubble, the elevator should be working." He felt manic and frantic, but he wouldn't, by word or deed, let Marnie know that.
"Elevator?"
"Jake's the's-spy king of the universe, Mikey."
"Is he, little one?"
She felt Michael on her other side as he took her wrist in his warm hand again. "Fast and thready, Kyle, she's in shock. No surprise there. You better hope to hell you're a good guy, Mr. Spy King of the Universe, otherwise the universe won't be big enough for you to hide. What the hell were you thinking involving a woman in whatever the hell all this is about?"
"Don' shout, Mi… don' shout at him, please."
She wanted to tell them that she knew she'd be fine. But she didn't believe it herself. People died from gunshot wounds.
Only in the movies did people get up and walk away. "If I die, tell—"
"You are not going to die!" Jake ground out, his grip on her hand like a vise. It hurt, and she whimpered. Jake swore. Michael cursed as well. Out of her line of sight she heard the others tossing charred timbers away from the cabin, trying to get to the elevator shaft.
