The Honeymoon Assignment

by Cathryn Clare

  And then she waited for the gunshot.

  It didn’t come.

  Instead, she heard Wayland’s voice, loud and insistent.

  “Wait!” he called out. “Wait just a doggone minute here.”

  Kelley let out the breath she’d been holding in.

  “Keep out of this, Wayland,” Harold warned his son.

  “I won’t keep out of it.”

  Whatever Sam had been saying to Wayland, it seemed to have pumped the other man’s voice full of an authority that Kelley had never heard there before. Way to go, Sam, she thought, and found herself holding her breath again, waiting.

  “Being an accessory to counterfeiting is one thing,” Wayland was telling his parents now. “But accessory to murder—that’s different. Especially murdering a woman.”

  As far as Kelley was concerned, murder was murder. But if Wayland wanted to quibble about gender, she, for one, wasn’t going to argue with him.

  “Especially a woman like Kelley.” He sounded downright belligerent now. “Damn it, I won’t be a part of this.”

  “It’s too late. You already are.” Harold’s voice was grim. He took a step away from Kelley, leaving her unguarded.

  She was still bound hand and foot—Harold had retied the ropes on her ankles when they’d reached the far end of the field—but the senior Prices were paying enough attention to Wayland now that Kelley had a chance to lower herself to the grass and slide her ankles through the circle of her arms. It wasn’t as good as being free, but with her hands in front of her she felt a little less helpless.

  Steve Cormier was doing the same thing. The three Prices were arguing loudly now, and Cormier, who’d been lying silently on the ground next to the target marker, began to move, slowly heading toward Kelley.

  “What are you going to do if I don’t go along with this?” Wayland was demanding. “Shoot me too? Your own son?” He seemed confident that they wouldn’t. Kelley hoped to God he was right.

  She got to her feet again, cursing the tight knots that held her ankles firmly together. She’d only barely regained her balance when she saw what Cormier was up to. Harold had given his weapon to Wayland to use in guarding Sam, which left him empty-handed when Cormier stood up suddenly and hurtled himself at Helen Price. Helen went sprawling, the gun skidded over the grass and Cormier quickly rolled himself on top of it.

  Kelley knew there wasn’t time to waste. She saw a flurry of motion to her left and wondered what kind of miracle had occurred for Sam to be moving so quickly. He seemed to be shouting, too, or maybe that was somebody else. She thought she heard yelling from over the crest of the hill, but she couldn’t spare the concentration to try to figure out who was causing it.

  Her whole attention was focused on Harold Price, who was lunging toward his son—and the gun. She hurled herself at him as hard as she could, and was rewarded with a deep oof as she connected with the back of his knees, knocking him down. The air whooshed out of her own body, too, leaving her winded, but she fought her way upright again, gasping for breath.

  “Give me that gun!” Harold was roaring at his son now, scrambling unsteadily to his feet.

  “I won’t. You’re both crazy—this whole thing is crazy.”

  Wayland held the gun away from Harold’s outstretched hands, backing up as his father approached him. Kelley saw his finger pressing the trigger, and the sudden loud report of the weapon made all of them jump, including Wayland.

  And then he backed into Sam.

  Sam’s hands were still tied, but he, too, had managed to bring them in front of his body. He captured Wayland from behind, locking strong arms around Wayland’s shoulders.

  There was yelling now. It must be the owners of the firing range, Kelley thought. But would the sound of shooting have warned them that something was wrong? People were supposed to fire weapons out here—that was doubtless why Harold and Helen had chosen the spot.

  Once again, there wasn’t time to sort it out. She heard Harold’s cruel chuckle as their former client said, “You might as well let him have it, Wayland. We don’t have to worry about him hitting anything. From what I hear, his shooting arm is virtually crippled.”

  To Kelley’s right, Helen Price and Steve Cormier were still trying to gain possession of the second gun. She knew she should be helping Cormier out, but somehow she couldn’t take her eyes off Sam’s face as Wayland slowly lowered the gun and handed it over.

  Sam looked pale, and drained.

  All the struggling he’d been doing couldn’t have been good for his shoulder, she knew. He must be in pain, serious pain.

  And Harold’s taunting was exactly the kind of thing that had always set Sam off, made him do crazy things.

  She wanted to call out to him, but she couldn’t. She felt drained herself, exhausted by the fear that had taken over her body and her mind. All she could do was watch as Sam took hold of the revolver in his tied hands and raised it to shoulder level.

  She could see the muscles in his arms shaking.

  She could see the sweat start on his brow, under that unruly fall of hair.

  She could see the fury in his blue eyes. And the determination. His face was pale with pain or doubt or both.

  And suddenly she knew what was in his mind. I’m going to do this, you son of a bitch. The words were as clear as if she’d heard him speak. I’m not going to kill you, because I’m not a killer. But I am going to win this fight.

  Everything seemed to slow down as Sam squeezed the trigger. Kelley heard the blast from the muzzle and recoiled instinctively. The puff of smoke was as gray as the clouds above, and it quickly disappeared against the sky.

  Harold Price howled and dropped to the ground, clutching his right knee. Helen gave up her attempt to grab the second gun and rushed toward her husband.

  And then Jack Cotter appeared.

  Kelley couldn’t imagine how he’d gotten there. But it really was Jack, with four or five other people, shouting at Sam and Kelley to keep their heads down, and at the Prices to get their hands in the air.

  Everything turned loud and chaotic. Kelley could hear the crackle of walkie-talkies, and somewhere in the distance the howl of a siren.

  She felt someone untying her wrists and ankles and didn’t even care who it was.

  She heard Wayland protesting, and Harold moaning, and people demanding to know whether Steve Cormier was all right.

  None of it really registered.

  The only thing that really mattered was the glimpse of Sam’s turbulent blue eyes through the sudden confusion of people and noise. She held on to his gaze like a lifeline and felt her heart starting to thud against her ribs as he moved toward her, pushing past a woman in a dark blue suit who seemed to be trying to talk to him.

  He looked as though he’d run a marathon over rough terrain. His face was still white and shaken, and the way he was holding his upper body told her he was in a great deal of pain. But he reached for her anyway, clasping her arms so strongly that Kelley winced at the bite of his long fingers.

  Sam winced, too. But before she could ask him if he was all right, he turned the same question on her.

  “Are you okay?” he demanded roughly. “You’re not hurt?”

  “I’m okay.”

  She wanted to move closer into his arms, to feel herself surrounded by the hard strength of his body. She needed the reassurance that he was alive, that he was as stubborn, as hardheaded as ever, that their chance at love hadn’t vanished in a bleak moment in an empty field.

  But Sam wasn’t saying anything about love. He was looking fiercely into her eyes as though he wasn’t sure he could trust her words. She could feel his arms shaking as he held on to her.

  “Your shoulder—’’ She reached toward it. “Sam, you must have—”

  “It doesn’t matter.” He shook his head tightly. “The only thing that matters is that we both got out of this alive. Thank God.”

  His last words were hoarse with relief. The woman in the dark suit had
approached him from behind again and was speaking to him. Someone was asking Kelley a question, too. The siren she’d heard earlier was getting closer, and she could see flashing lights coming over the crest of the hill.

  Someone had alerted the local police, she thought. And the ambulance. She was glad—Sam needed help for that shoulder. Judging by the pallor of his face, he was covering up a lot more agony than he was letting on.

  He didn’t seem to be covering up any feelings of love, as far as Kelley could see. Relief, gratitude, triumph—those were the only emotions she’d glimpsed behind those blue eyes of his.

  We both got out of this alive. Thank God. After everything they’d been through, this was still just a case to Sam.

  Kelley felt something wrench inside her. Suddenly she wanted to be alone, away from all these people and their questions, until she could answer the painful question that was forcing itself into her thoughts.

  Was her heart strong enough to survive losing Sam Cotter a second time?

  Night was falling and she still had no good answer.

  Kelley pulled on her warmest sweater, the yellow wool one, over her jeans, which were finally dry after last night’s rainstorm. Her sneakers were still damp, but she didn’t care. Cold feet were a small price to pay for the luxury of a little time by herself.

  She’d spent the entire day with Jack Cotter and his superiors, and with Wiley and the local police. She hadn’t seen Sam since this morning—he’d been carried off in the ambulance directly from the firing range, and although she’d asked about him repeatedly, it seemed that no one among the law-enforcement crowd knew the extent of his injuries, or when he might be back.

  If he might be back.

  The case here was nearly closed, as far as the FBI and Cotter Investigations were concerned. Things had started coming to a head last night, Jack had explained.

  “Our agents have been keeping an eye on the Houston mob just as a matter of course,” he said. “When Harold and Helen Price showed up out of the blue to meet with one of the mob’s top financial people, bells started going off.”

  Jack hadn’t heard the news until early this morning. He’d tried to call Sam and Kelley, only to discover the phones weren’t working. Uneasy about the lack of communication and the Prices’ newly discovered connection to organized crime, he’d enlisted some backup and come straight to Cairo.

  “And it’s a lucky thing you’ve got health-conscious neighbors,” he said. Susan Gustaffson, on her way to an early-morning workout at the Windspray health club, had happened to notice the Prices’ minivan leaving the community not long before Jack came looking for his brother and Kelley.

  “And to think Susan was one of our leading suspects,” Kelley replied. Their questions about the Gustaffsons had been answered—the unexplained income of the year before had been a gift from Susan’s father, and the gun Sam had found in their cottage was one that Jon used for target shooting.

  The other loose ends in the case had been tied up by now, too. It had become very clear how Harold and Helen Price had manipulated Sam and Kelley, substituting an obviously faked job application for the one Steve Cormier had actually given them when he’d started working at Windspray, and leading their hired investigators directly to Cormier’s cottage after they’d captured and imprisoned the handyman.

  Wayland had gladly backed up Cormier’s account of being tied and gagged in the hold of the Prices’ sailboat for two days. In fact, Wayland was happily filling in every blank he could, out of eagerness to distance himself from his parents’ crimes.

  It was ironic, Kelley thought, that their prime suspects were turning out to be the best sources of information now. Not only was Wayland supplying details about the Prices’ financial affairs—including naming the tottering oil companies where Harold had lost most of his money—but Susan Gustaffson had been the one to put Jack on the trail of the Prices’ vehicle early Sunday morning. It had taken a few false starts, but the federal agents had finally narrowed the search down to the road that led to the firing range.

  “Although it looked as though you guys had things more or less under control by the time we arrived,” Jack had said, sounding amazed. “How the hell three unarmed people managed to get the upper hand over the Prices still beats me.”

  “It was a little diplomacy,” Kelley told him, recalling Wayland’s role in their escape, “and a lot of guts.”

  She hadn’t been able to forget the look on Sam’s face as he’d leveled the gun and fired—with point-blank accuracy—at Harold Price. What had that effort cost him, physically and mentally? How many old demons had he had to overcome to make that perfect shot?

  And where the hell was he now?

  After a hasty meal in the Windspray restaurant, Kelley had decided that she needed to get away from the commotion at the Windspray Community. She walked by herself to the massive stone breakwater near the town pier. The tide was ebbing, and the surf at the base of the breakwater was slow and deliberate, as though it had spent all its fury in last night’s storm and was retreating into calmer waters.

  And what about me? Kelley asked herself as she perched on a long flat rock with her arms clasped around her knees. Is there anywhere I can go to find peace, now that I’ve let Sam Cotter turn my life upside down again?

  She didn’t find an answer in the waves. But the motion of the sea was calming, and she let herself be lulled by it, watching the water curl itself into a long roll and then splash along the edge of the breakwater in a motion that seemed quick and slow at the same time.

  “Kelley.”

  At first the sound of her name seemed to blend with the hissing of the surf. She didn’t turn around until Sam spoke a second time.

  “Not thinking of taking off across the Gulf like the Prices were, I hope.”

  “Sam—” She turned suddenly and saw him standing at the base of the huge pile of stones.

  “Don’t come down.” He shook his dark head and clambered—unsteadily, she noticed—onto the breakwater. “I’m not as infirm as they might have told you.”

  “Nobody told me anything.” She got to her feet, holding out a hand to him as he stepped from one big rock to the next. “Have you been at the hospital all this time?”

  He nodded. He looked exhausted, Kelley thought.

  And pale.

  And gorgeous.

  The touch of his palm against hers was like coming alive again. It wasn’t just the warmth of his skin or the familiar grip of his fingers. It was the way he was reaching out for her, accepting her offer.

  “Thanks,” he said. “I may not be infirm, but I am tired as hell.”

  “And not too stubborn to admit it, for once.”

  “Damn, woman, give me a break, would you?” He sat down next to her, stretching long legs out in front of him toward the open sea. She watched him lean on one hip, start to pat his back pocket, then grimace. “Smoked the last one on the way back down here,” he muttered. “Well, maybe that means it’s time to quit again.”

  “You seem to quit every time you finish a pack.”

  “I know.” His grin was sardonic, and Kelley found herself smiling back at him, responding instinctively to the quick gleam in his blue eyes. “Just goes with my stubborn personality, I guess,” he added. “Quitting isn’t one of my strong points.”

  She thought about him following his dad into unknown territory at the tender age of seven. She felt fairly confident that Sam Cotter had been born into this world with strong opinions of his own already forming in that head of his.

  “It’s a good thing you’re so stubborn.” Her voice was softer as she answered him. “Getting those ropes off your ankles was probably what saved us this morning.” He was leaning back on one long arm, but his other hand was splayed against his thigh. Kelley could see the faint red abrasions on his fingers from his efforts in fighting the knots around his ankles.

  She looked up at his face again, and saw for the first time that there was a tan bandage showing at the neck
of his navy blue sweatshirt. She frowned and raised a hand to it.

  “I heard a rumor at one point this afternoon that you’d dislocated that shoulder all over again,” she told him. “If that’s true—”

  “Shh.” He shook his head at her and captured her hand before she could reach the elastic bandage. “You’re changing the subject, sweetheart.”

  “No, I’m not. The subject was how stubborn you are, and it seems to me—”

  “We were talking about my never knowing when to quit. That’s what’s important here.”

  Kelley met his eyes again and felt her whole body tremble with the longing to be closer to him, to see his face transformed by that slow, sexy smile she loved, to know she could hold and comfort him without wondering how long it would last this time.

  But he was talking about quitting.

  She swallowed, and said, “I don’t understand.”

  Sam’s gaze shifted, and for a long moment he seemed to be mesmerized by the slow sweep of the waves, just as Kelley had been a few minutes earlier. The light wind stirred his tangled dark hair, and the look in his eyes was pensive, even regretful.

  As he turned back toward Kelley, he sighed.

  And she felt her heart constrict into a small, painful knot, just as it had the first time he’d rejected her.

  “Hell, I didn’t understand, either, sweetheart, until I realized this morning how close we’d come to getting ourselves killed.” He started to shove his free hand through his hair, but Kelley saw him flinch as he moved his shoulder.

  Everything was reminding him of the old lessons he’d learned so well, she thought.

  And suddenly she couldn’t stand to hear him say the same words she’d heard three years ago. It was never meant to be. You’ll be better off without me.

  “I know,” she said quickly, cutting off his next remark. “You think there’s no good way for us to work together, and maybe you’re right. Maybe I should look for a job with another agency once you take over from Wiley. But, Sam—”