by Dana Marton
Kate was the most decent, kindest person Murph had ever met.
Shoot. He silently begged her. Don’t think. Drop the bastard dead.
He held his breath.
Shoot!
He flexed his arm, almost out of the damn restraint. He needed another minute, time he wasn’t going to get.
Asael picked up the carving knife again. Then he paused.
Run!
Kate pulled the trigger.
Perfect hit. The bullet went in through Asael’s back and tore a chunk out of his chest in the front. The hitman’s eyes snapped wide with surprise, then he staggered forward and fell on Murph, nearly stabbing him in the liver.
“Left pants pocket!” Murph shouted.
Kate lunged forward, pinned the guy in place with her body weight, and got the detonation device. Then she let Asael fall, trembling and panting, looking as if she was on the verge of a panic attack.
“There’s a toggle on the side.” She looked at Murph, eyes impossibly wide, voice shaking. “In the Off position. I don’t think it was armed.” She showed it to him before gingerly setting it down on the workbench above his head.
“Breathe. It’s over. You did it.” He yanked his hand free at last. “Hell of a shot.”
She put the safety back on the gun, laid that next to the detonator, then attacked Murph’s other restraints. “You’re okay.”
“Then why are you crying? Do I look that bad?”
“No,” she lied through her teeth as she freed him.
He sat up, and the cuts on his chest pulled, but he ignored the pain. He couldn’t take his eyes off Kate. Safe. She was safe. Asael was dead.
“Did he hurt you?” He swung his legs over the side of the table and slid off, went to his knees next to Asael and grabbed the phone from the man’s shirt pocket.
He looked into the camera.
“Show’s over, Fucker. Now I’ll be coming for your balls next.” Then he turned the phone off. He had no time to waste on the bastard. “Where’s Emma?” he asked as he stood. “Is she all right?”
“She’s fine. I’m fine.” Kate’s voice cracked. She hugged him carefully. Held him with heartbreaking tenderness. “I was so scared I wouldn’t reach you in time.”
“I swear my heart stopped when you popped up behind him.” Murph luxuriated in the sheer relief of having her safe. “Let’s not do this again.”
“Deal.” Kate pulled away, and Murph glanced down at the gaping hole in Asael’s chest, at his blank, frozen face. The bastard had gotten off too easy. “He died so damn fast, it’s almost anticlimactic.”
“And that’s a bad thing?”
“I’d be lying if I said I didn’t hope for some last-minute hand-to-hand combat between the two of us.”
She flashed him an incredulous look. “You got Mordocai. I got Asael. That’s how partnerships work. We share.”
Partnership. Murph liked the sound of that. “Screw him.” He picked up his gun. “Let’s go.”
Her gaze slid to his chest. She flinched. “I think I should call an ambulance for you.”
“I’m not going to the hospital over a broken fingernail.” He swallowed the blood running down his throat.
“Ripped out fingernail. Among other injuries.” She scooped his clothes up from the floor, started to hand them over, but then noticed the shape they were in and dropped them again. “Now what?”
He pulled her back, careful not to get blood on her, although, she didn’t seem to care. God, he’d missed this—the smell of her, the feel of her, her pliant softness. “I’m naked and I have a beautiful woman in my arms. Sounds like the beginning of something great.”
He kissed her cheek and wiped off the small smudge of blood his lips left behind. He’d forgotten about his tooth there for a second. Dammit, he wanted to kiss her. Badly. So much that it hurt to have to hold back. “Sorry.”
Before she could respond, an explosion shook the ground, startling them apart.
“The bombs were on a timer.” He swore. “The detonator was for show. Let’s go.”
She grabbed his arm. “Naked?”
“There are work overalls upstairs.”
She pressed her lips together, as if marshaling her arguments, but in the end, she nodded. “You clean up in the bathroom under the stairs, and I’ll find you something to wear.”
She took off, and he headed to the bathroom. When he caught sight of himself in the chipped mirror over the sink, he did a doubletake. He looked like an extra from a B-rated horror flick. Blood covered his chin. His chest too, from all those cuts. He looked like someone had tried to skin him.
Okay. So kissing Kate would definitely have to wait.
He washed off and used an ancient roll of paper towels on the sink to dab himself dry. Some of the cuts still oozed, but nothing was gushing.
By the time he left the small bathroom, Kate was there with a pair of worn blue overalls and a first aid kit. “Found it on the wall by the front door, next to the fire extinguisher.”
She handed him the clothes first. “Relatively clean. I shook out the dust, but you’re going to have to bathe in disinfectant at the earliest opportunity. Hope you know when you got your last tetanus shot.”
Murph kicked off his boots—which Asael had left on—then stepped into the much-needed covering and pulled it up. He slipped Asael’s phone into his pocket. “That’s going straight to the FBI.”
“You think they can track down the guy on the other end of the call?” Kate held out the first aid kit.
Murph waved it away, yanked up the front zipper of his overalls, then put his boots back on. “I trust Cirelli to give it a hell of a good try.”
Then he headed back to the table, stepped over Asael, accidentally kicking him in the head, and grabbed the bloody jar. He picked out his tooth, put it over the hole in his mouth, and bit down to force the root back into place.
Hurt like a sonofabitch, but it seemed to stop the bleeding.
Kate rushed to him. “What are you doing?”
When Murph turned, he accidentally kicked Asael in the head again. Accidentally even harder. “If you get a tooth knocked out, sometimes it can be saved if you put it back.” He went for the stairs. “You have a car up front?”
“I ran.”
“All the way?” He was never going to be able to thank her enough. She’d come back for him. God, he loved her. And the second they had a minute alone together… “I have an Altima stashed around the corner. I’ll take you home where you’ll be safe, then I’ll head over to see what I can do to help at the parade.”
“I’m not the kind of woman who stays home safe while others are being hurt.” She kept up with him. “Especially when my sister and parents could be in danger. I’ll drive. And you’re not getting out of the car.”
He smiled at her as they stepped outside. Then snapped his mouth closed. His teeth were probably bloody. “I’m not the kind of guy who doesn’t get out of the car.”
“I know.” She smiled back at him. “It’s one of the things I love about you.”
That last thing she said made a lot of Murph’s pain go away. “We’re going to talk about this at the earliest opportunity. Right now, I have to grab my phone.” He hurried around the building.
The second he had the phone in hand, he called Cirelli. “I’m all right. I’m with Kate,” he said as he headed back to her. “Asael is dead.”
“Where the hell are you?” Cirelli demanded. “I sent agents to the location you texted.”
“They didn’t come.”
A pause while Cirelli talked to someone on the other end. “There are two Nowak’s Antiques. Their old place and their new place. I’m sorry, Murph. How dead is Asael?”
“Bullet through the heart. Would be hard to be deader. I gotta go.” Murph hung up and ran toward the car with Kate next to him.
“You’re bleeding through your overalls.” She grabbed his wrist. “Give me the phone. I’m calling 9-1-1.”
He glanced a
t the dark stain spreading on his chest. “It’s barely anything. I’m sure the ambulances are busy.” Then they were at the car, the key still in the ignition, thank God. He stopped with his hand on the roof. “Tell me you know I love you and it has nothing to do with forced proximity or any other bullshit, and I promise to heal instantly.”
“What if I just activated your protective instincts, which, let’s face it, are pretty overdeveloped from having been a police officer and a soldier?” She pushed him out of the way to get to the driver’s-side door. “I’m driving.”
He went around to the passenger side. “First of all, I’m hurt that my protective instincts are the only overdeveloped thing I have that you noticed.” He got in. “Second of all, I’ve protected plenty of people when I worked in the PD, and plenty of people when I was in the Reserves. A lot of them were women. I never felt about any of them like I feel about you. So, please, give me some credit here that I know my own mind.”
“Okay.” She turned the key in the ignition.
He stared at her. “Okay? Just like that? After putting me through hell for the past three months?”
She swung the car around. “I could have lost you for real. Permanently. I don’t want to live without you. Even if I could, I don’t want to.” She handed him the first aid kit from her lap. “Please bandage yourself up. I can’t think when you’re bleeding.”
“We’re starting over.” He laid down the law as he rifled through the contents. “Once a month, we’re going to have a fight. We’re not breaking up again because you get worried that we never argue. We’ll have a spirited disagreement about something. And then we’ll have makeup sex.”
God, he couldn’t wait to get his hands on her.
“We’re in the middle of an emergency.” She reproached him, but didn’t sound terribly offended. “Don’t look at me like that.”
Chapter Thirty-Two
Kate
“Are you sure you’re all right?” Kate glanced at Murph as she drove.
She’d gotten to him in time. Murph was alive, and Asael was dead. Little else mattered.
“Good as new.” He finished bandaging the thumb with the missing nail. He’d already slapped Band-Aids on all the cuts on his chest. “What I want to know is, how did Asael get you? How the hell did he get past Hunter?”
She winced. “He didn’t. I did.”
And then she explained to Murph how all that happened.
He grew quieter and quieter, a tornado brewing on the passenger seat.
She told him about the part when Asael had forced her to inject herself and Emma. “Some kind of paralytic, but I’m not sure what.”
“What the hell?” His voice was low, tight, dark. “What the…” He shook his head as if he didn’t trust himself with more. “Kate…”
“I know! Okay? What other choice did I have? He was pointing a gun.”
“You shouldn’t have been there in the first place. What were you thinking? Why would you risk yourself like that?”
“I had to try to save Emma. Like you had to come to save me. Like I had to come back to save you.”
He looked away from her, out the windshield, as if he didn’t trust himself to look at her. She had a feeling this wasn’t the last fight they were going to have about the subject.
Then, thank God, they were as close to Main Street as Kate could get. Temporary reprieve.
She parked, and they both shot out of the car, hurrying through the barricades while throngs of people were coming from the opposite direction, looking rattled, everybody talking. Nobody seemed alarmed by the dark blood splotches on Murph’s chest. Then again, on the blue of the overalls, they could easily be mistaken for oil stains. But Kate knew the truth, and every time she looked at him, she could have shot Asael all over again.
Maybe one day she’d feel guilty over taking a life, but that day was in the far distant future. She was pretty sure she’d be dead herself before that happened.
They had to pause in crossing a side street to let a fire truck pass.
Murph took her hand. “I love you.”
Her heart turned over in her chest. Emotions rushed her. A tear rolled down her cheek.
“I’m pregnant.” Aw, dammit. She should have told him sooner. She should have started with that.
One second of stunned staring, then a smile that made her heart melt, then a drill sergeant look came over Murph’s face, and he turned her right around. “I’m taking you to the hospital.”
“You’re crying.”
“Men cry now. It’s the twenty-first century.” Exasperation thickened his voice. “Dammit, Kate. You were drugged. You’ve been through trauma. You’re pregnant…”
“I keep forgetting.” But he was right. Arguing with him would have been stupid, and she wasn’t stupid. “I’ll go to the bed-and-breakfast. Emma was supposed to find Mom and Dad. They’re probably there. Be careful,” she added, then stepped into his arms and kissed his jaw, on the side that wasn’t hurt. “The baby and I need you back in one piece, so don’t take any chances.”
His arms tightened around her, his gaze searching her face. “Okay. Let’s summarize. We’re okay. We’re having a baby. And you love me. Just to make sure I didn’t misunderstand anything.”
“Yes.”
“Thank fuck. I want to kiss you more than I want my next breath, but my mouth tastes like blood, so… Rain check?”
“Rain check.”
She watched as he ran off toward danger. Then she ran in the opposite direction, toward the bed-and-breakfast.
At least two dozen people crowded the lawn, the front door wide open. Shannon O’Brian was directing everyone, her gray bun wagging in the air as her head moved back and forth. “Minor injuries inside! We have first aid kits. Serious injuries stay out here. Ambulances are on their way.”
The carpet that used to be in her foyer covered the grass to the left of the front door, several people sitting or lying on it, one woman holding her arm, another tilting her face so someone could press a wad of gauze to a deep gash on the woman’s face.
When the Good Samaritan stepped aside, Kate spotted Emma behind her and hurried over, grabbed Emma’s arm.
“Are you all right?” She scanned her sister for injuries, found none, and breathed a little easier, threw her arms around Emma for a moment. Then she had to let go, because Emma was pressing a tea towel to a man’s bleeding temple.
“Thank God, you’re here,” she said. “I wasn’t near the explosion. I was halfway down the street by then. How is Murph?”
“I got to him in time. He’s right back in the thick of it. Asael is dead. Where are Mom and Dad?”
“Helping inside. Worried sick about you. Go talk to them.”
So Kate went.
And there they were, in the living room, in the middle of the bustling mess. Everybody she loved accounted for. Tears sprung to her eyes all over again.
“Mom! Dad!”
“Oh my God, honey. Your eye! You and Emma both.” Ellie Bridges shook her head and looked near weeping. “Are you all right? Murph?”
“Injured but alive. He’s off to save the world, because, you know, he’s Murph.”
Tears did roll then, from all parties involved. A hoarse “Sweetheart” from her father. A round of tight, tight hugs, but no more. The need around them was too great.
“Here.” Kate’s mother handed her a roll of bandages and pointed at Linda Gonzales, who was sitting on a chair and holding her wrist. “Can you help that woman?”
“Linda!” Kate rushed over. “What happened?”
“The explosion knocked me down.” Her hair stuck out all over the place. “I used my hand to brace myself.”
“Do you think it’s broken?”
Linda rolled her wrist. “I don’t think so. Have you seen Tony? Do you know if he came to the parade?”
“Mr. Mauro? Definitely not. Still at the hospital. How about I stabilize your injury, then you’ll have the EMTs take a look when they get here?�
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“Sounds like a plan. I’m really glad you’re here.”
Kate began rolling on the bandage, firmly enough to hold any pulled ligaments, but not so tight that it would restrict circulation. She tucked the end of the bandage in, then patted Linda’s shoulder. “All set.”
“Thank you. I’ll go outside and wait for that ambulance.”
Kate was going to walk her out, but a little boy with a badly scraped knee took the chair, confidently announcing, “I’m next.”
Kate’s father came by and handed her and the boy bottles of water from a plastic bucket, kissed her on the temple. “I don’t know what I would have done if anything happened to either of my girls.”
Kate gave him a quick hug. “I love you, Dad.”
Then she knelt in front of the boy. “Are you okay? I’m Kate. What’s your name? How old are you?”
“Zak. I am seven.” He eyed the peroxide warily. “I was running, and I fell. I can’t find my mom.”
“I’m sure she’ll be here by the time I fix you up and find you a snack in the kitchen. You know Broslin—somebody probably already saw you here and called her.”
The boy nodded with a serious expression. “Like how Mrs. Moses told her that she saw me skipping school?”
“Exactly like that.” Kate caught him glancing at a jar of glass eyes on the windowsill. “Have you ever been in here before?”
He shook his head.
“How cool are those eyes?” she asked as she cleaned the dirt from his wound.
He winced, but then he said, “Creepy cool. You think I could touch one?”
“I bet Mrs. O’Brian wouldn’t mind. I’ll ask her for you when we finish here.”
Kate found some antibiotic cream in an open first aid kit on the floor a few steps away and dabbed that on, Zak taking it like a soldier. Then she hunted down an oversized Band-Aid and covered the still-seeping wound.
“Zachary!” A disheveled woman who had the boy’s blue eyes just about flew through the room to reach them.
“Mom!”
She hugged him fiercely first before examining every inch of him, then turning to Kate. “Is he okay?”
