“‘Dad.’”
Lore’s heart decomposed and reformed within her chest. Her breath was stolen by pain and memories, and all she could see were her father’s sparkling eyes smiling down at her as he told her he loved her. He did love her. She’d always known that. And she loved him. It made the deceit that much harder to bear.
“No,” the agent said, ripping the paper from her hands, then staring at it, back to front, searching for some hidden meaning in his words. Words that were meant just for her. Christ, when had he written that letter? “No!” Bishop screamed, shredding the paper to pieces.
She couldn’t dwell on her father’s words. The man’s preoccupation with his rage was her only chance. Lore collapsed to the floor by her father’s old desk, thankful she’d left this room to clean up last after the encounter with the locksmith. That shitty locksmith whom she’d sue in some way after this whole ordeal was over. Nolan and Wayne would take great pleasure in it.
She pressed the lock underneath the desk, releasing her dad’s old gun with a quiet snick, and backed up to the wall by the door, unnoticed by the enraged FBI agent.
“Where is it?” he yelled, searching the safe, then switching his attention to the desk, ripping the drawers from their shelving. “I know it’s here. It has to be here.”
Lore got to the office door, hoping she could sneak out unnoticed, then run to her neighbor’s house and use the phone. She’d call the police first and then Nolan, understanding that any charges laid at an FBI agent’s feet would have to have some serious clout behind it. Just as she began to inch the door open, the hinges squeaked loudly, interrupting the man’s searching frenzy.
“Oh, no you don’t, little Lore,” he growled, advancing on her with well-practiced speed. She switched off the safety and lifted the gun, holding it with both hands and aiming it right between his eyes. He paused, continuing to gasp through his clenched teeth. “Shooting an FBI agent will send you away for life.”
“Doesn’t matter what you are; it’s self-defense.”
The bastard laughed at her. “That will get you nowhere. Do you even know how to fire that thing?”
“My father was an arms dealer; what do you think?”
“So you admit you knew what he was?”
“No, I admit that he wanted his daughter to be able to defend herself. One of the few good things he left for me.”
He eyed her for a moment, considering, taking his time to evaluate the situation. “That gun is ancient. It probably doesn’t have any bullets in it.”
She cocked the gun. “Want to chance that?”
“Just put the gun down, sweetheart. Put it down and I’ll go and we can pretend this never happened.”
A door opened. She heard Nolan’s voice call out from the front of the house. “Lore?”
“No,” she whispered, distracted by her terror for him for just a split second. Bishop dived for her, gripping her wrist in a bruising hold and using his other arm to punch her in the ribs. She felt something crack, her breathing labored as she cried out in pain. She wouldn’t let the bastard win.
“No!” she screamed, jumping up despite the pain, then kneeing him in the balls. She took advantage of his moment of disorientation to head butt him, trying to get him away from her and away from the door.
He recovered from the shock quickly, reaching for her, rasping. His lip was bleeding from where her head caught him. “Give me the gun, you bitch!”
“Lore?”
“Stay away, Nolan.” She turned quickly, continuing to hold the gun at the agent and locked them in. She would not let this man out to hurt Nolan, and she wouldn’t let Nolan come in and try to jump between them to protect her. It was her turn to protect him.
Lore!” Kieran’s voice. God, they were both here. An intense banging on the office door as they tried to get in. “Lore! Lore, are you okay?”
No, how could they both be here? They were supposed to be out.
“You’re dead.” Bishop grunted, bringing his gun up to aim at her chest.
“You kill me and I’m taking you down too.”
“I’ll take my chances.”
Lore got off a shot a mere second before he did, causing his aim to falter. She felt a searing pain in her thigh as she collapsed to the ground. When she opened her eyes, it was to see blood trickling down her leg. She saw the FBI agent crumpled in a heap, blood leaking from his throat in a heavy gush. He was dead. She was alive, and he was dead. Christ, her head hurt from that head butt. She was trying desperately to ignore the pain from the gun wound.
“You guys can come in now,” she rasped, trying to keep her eyes open. She was so sleepy, and the pain would stop if she could rest for a while.
“Come in,” she whispered to the incessant knocking, falling asleep before she could see who was making such a racket.
Chapter Eighteen
Kieran listened to the miserable sound of machines beeping, calculating the rate at which Lore’s heart beat. On one hand, he was eternally grateful that her heart continued to pump, continued to fuel her life. On the other, he hated every symbol, every moment he had to listen to the beeping of that fucking awful machine. He’d never heard a worse sound. He could paint for decades the image that sound brought to mind, and it would never fully contain the amount of fear and sheer horror seeing Lore bleeding and unconscious on the floor had instilled in Kieran’s soul.
Nor would it erase the memory of the agonized cry that had been ripped from Nolan upon seeing her. Now Nolan was stock-still in a hard chair on the opposite side of Lore’s hospital bed from where Kieran sat. They both remained silent, needing no words, just needing Lore to wake from her unconscious state. The doctors said the bullet was a clean sweep, right in and right out the other end. No arteries had been damaged, just muscle. She’d lost a considerable amount of blood, had a black eye, and a couple of broken ribs, but other than that she would be just fine.
Yeah, other than that. There was no other than that. Lore was unconscious in the hospital, and while Kieran was fully aware the situation could be much worse, he had no concept of what that felt like. All he knew was that a woman he and Nolan loved with all their souls was lying in a hospital bed after having been attacked and shot by some psychotic FBI agent. An agent he had a sneaking suspicion was the man he’d seen in the car across the street that one day. If only he’d been able to speak to him, question him, report him, do something useful to prevent what had happened. His heart hurt. He had no notion of what worse felt like and hoped to God he never would.
“Hey,” Nolan said from across the bed, not taking his eyes off her. “She’ll be okay.”
“You sure?”
“That’s what the doctors said.”
“Since when do you trust doctors?”
“Since when do you trust lawyers?”
Kieran wanted to smile at Nolan’s attempted joke, but he couldn’t. Instead he tried to focus on the one thing they both wanted. “She’ll be fine.” But the evidence was staring them in the face, and it wasn’t good. Kieran couldn’t hold on to the good thoughts anymore, not right then, not with her looking like that.
“It’s been two days since we saw her smile. Two days since her eyes opened. What part of that makes you think everything will be all right?”
“I didn’t say things are good now. I said she will be okay. It will take time.” Nolan stretched his hand across the bed, resting where Lore’s were lying on her belly.
“She’s gonna need physical therapy,” Kieran said, staring at where Nolan’s and Lore’s hands met.
“So she’ll get the best. I’ll pay for it. I don’t care how much it costs. She gets the best of everything.”
“Agreed.” Kieran reached across the bed and clasped his hand to theirs. “I love you.”
“Love you too. Now and always. You and I, we’ll get her through this and we’ll all come out stronger on the other end. She’ll be stronger.”
Clacking footsteps echoed down the hall, coming closer
and closer until a blonde woman rushed in, forcing her body to stop its forward motion and slipping. Her wide eyes caught Kieran’s first and asked, “Is this Lore’s room?” Spotting the woman lying on the bed answered that question for her. “Oh, no,” she gasped, walking forward and forgetting the bouquet of flowers she’d been holding as they slipped and fell to the floor.
“Kathy?” Nolan stood, clearly recognizing the woman.
“Nolan, hi,” she said faintly, staring at Lore from the base of the bed with a scrunched-up face, clearly trying not to cry. Then she really saw him, and Kieran could almost physically see the lightbulb go off in her head. “Oh my God. Nolan! You’re one of her two boyfriends?”
“She told you about us?” Nolan asked, glancing at Kieran for a second, clearly shocked that Lore would tell anybody anything about her personal life.
“After I nearly pried it out of her, but yes.”
“I didn’t realize Lore hung out with people other than us,” Kieran said, trying to phrase that in a better way than he had. But honestly, he was emotionally strung out and couldn’t tiptoe around Lore’s private nature. The woman he loved was an introvert with less than a few select friends, and he wouldn’t have her any other way.
“She doesn’t,” Kathy agreed with a smile. “Well, she didn’t. I sort of stalked her into it.”
“I’m glad you did,” Nolan said, grasping the woman’s shoulder in thanks for a brief moment. “I like the idea of others watching out for her.”
She smiled shortly, staring back down at Lore with great concern. “I harassed a nurse into telling me what was happening. He said she’d make a full recovery, thank goodness.”
“Harassed a nurse?” Kieran snorted, feeling drained and not emotionally prepared for the exuberance of this woman’s personality. But it was good for him. Her presence shocked him out of his mental coma and back into the real world, where doubt didn’t rule his everyday life. Lore would get better. He had to believe in that. He had to believe in her.
“And by harassed I mean got his number first, then asked how Lore was doing. They’re more receptive that way.” She winked, walking over to pick up the flowers she’d dropped and place them on Lore’s bedside table.
“How very enterprising of you,” Nolan said, his focus returning to Lore’s prone figure.
“She’s stable. She’ll get better, Nolan. That’s what I needed to know.”
“How did you hear that she was in the hospital?” Kieran asked, wondering that since the woman had stormed in looking for Lore.
“It was on the news. FBI agent attacks civilian. When I saw the house on the TV, I recognized it as Lore’s folks’. I called every hospital nearby until I found her.”
“She’s on the news?” Kieran groaned, knowing what a nightmare her teenage years were as her dad’s court case had been constantly on the TV. “She’ll hate that.”
Kathy waved Kieran’s concern away. “It will blow over. The case seems cut-and-dried to me.”
“And you’re an expert?” Nolan asked.
“After a case with you and Wayne, I am. You made an expert out of me. What I’d like to be an expert on is this crazy woman.” She gestured to Lore, her face losing any mirth she may have regained from their conversation, her voice quieting. “She basically sacrificed her pride to catch that jerkoff red-handed. Don’t think I believe she could ever have been subdued by him for a second. She’s a lot stronger than any of the other women at work.”
“We know,” Kieran said, looking back at Lore and willing her to wake up.
“Do you?” Kathy asked archly, hands on her hips. “You don’t have some normal woman here, guys. She’s special and deserves to be treated like she’s special. She deserves to be protected.”
“We fucked up,” Nolan blurted out, reaching for Lore’s hand once more. “Nothing like this will ever happen again.”
“She’s special, but she needs people like us, riding her every day, helping her acclimate to normal society.”
“Special but different,” Kieran added.
“Yeah, but in a good way.” Kathy smirked. “Who wants to be normal anyway?”
“Normal is boring,” Nolan agreed, smiling at Kieran.
“So says the lawyer part of a ménage relationship.”
Kieran laughed at Kathy’s blunt summation of Nolan’s love life, feeling in his heart that it really would be okay.
* * * *
Lore opened her eyes to the most heavenly sight: two men, both on her right, and asleep with their heads on the bed, gripping each other’s hands tightly, supporting one another. She loved that, their love for one another so evident they couldn’t hide it from the world. Would the three of them in their peculiar relationship ever be able to share that so blithely in public? She didn’t think so, but then she thought of Kathy and how accepting the woman had been when Lore explained the situation, and of Wayne, whose fatherly threatening of Nolan had almost been normal.
Maybe not everybody, but a select few could know. It would be enough. It was more than enough. As long as she had these men she could weather anything. For with them, she wasn’t alone anymore. She wasn’t afraid anymore.
Nolan’s eyes opened and smiled as he saw her, his shoulders sagging with relief. He looked like hell.
“Hey, baby,” he whispered, his eyes filling with tears as he grasped her hand and kissed it.
“Hey, sexy,” she whispered, her voice hoarse from disuse. She tried to swallow, but her throat was so dry and her eyes felt caked with neglect. “How long was I out?”
“A week. You’ve been in and out the last couple of days, but you weren’t really with us yet.”
“So, have I lost my leg?”
“No.” He smiled, shaking his head at her ill attempt at humor. “You had an infection that kept you under awhile longer, but it’s all right now. It will be rough going for a bit, but you’ll be good.” Nolan brushed what was probably a very greasy strand of hair out of her face. “You’re tough.”
“You bet your ass I’m tough.”
Kieran woke as he heard their voices and greeted her with a thousand kisses. Feeling his sweet breath on her skin and the shaking in his hands as he gripped hers, she knew it wasn’t by her will alone that she’d survived. The knowledge that these two men loved her had given her the strength to fight her way through Agent Bishop’s attack. She had not only fought to be with them once more, but also fought for herself, for the woman she might have been, and for the woman she had become.
Epilogue
New Year’s Eve, 2013
“Oy, you two! It’s on. Stop making out and get back in here!”
Kieran had to work hard to hold back his grin as his two kiss-bruised lovers made their way, hand in hand, from the kitchen and into the living room. Lore used her cane as her leg was still bothering her, and Nolan attempted to support her without letting Lore know he was supporting her. She knew, of course, but allowed him do it anyway. It always gave Kieran a little jolt of panic whenever he saw Lore use her cane, reminding him of that awful week when she just wouldn’t wake up. They’d begged and pleaded by her bedside, hoping she or some higher power would listen to their prayers. But she was here now, well and on the way to barely needing the cane throughout a normal day. He shook himself free of the painful memories, wanting to revel in the bliss that was their present.
Kieran had spent a good part of the day constructing a giant blanket fort for them to camp out in all night long. Their first New Year’s Eve together should be all that Lore had imagined and more, and Kieran had done everything in his power to make it so.
Thanksgiving and Christmas had been as magical as he’d known they would be. The greatest gift Kieran and Nolan had received was Lore moving in with them the weekend before Christmas. She’d pretty much moved in before that anyway, spending her time immediately after the hospital at their house. She hadn’t even tried to persuade the men to let her recuperate back at her own place, much to Kieran’s surprise. Anyway,
it had made sense; Kieran worked from home so he could be there for her if she needed him. And holy hell had she needed him.
The recovery process hadn’t been as smooth as they’d hoped. About a couple of days after the shooting, the doctors noticed Lore’s health declining and surmised a small infection had taken hold in her leg. Luckily it hadn’t been too serious, but the resulting recovery time nearly doubled.
Lore had taken it like a champ after waking up, cursing and whining that she was fine and a damn infection wasn’t going to kill her if a crazed FBI agent couldn’t. She never ceased to amaze Kieran, this woman who’d kept herself hidden from view, away from the light so she could never truly blossom. Watching her smiling in her red and blue silk pajama bottoms and blue tank top, Kieran could see her spirit was finally in full bloom.
“If it were you with either me or Nolan in there,” Lore said, collapsing on the floor next to Kieran with a huff. “You’d be making out too.”
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