Cindy Gerard - [Bodyguards 05]

by Under the Wire

  He was here. A detective on the Boston PD. He’d been here for almost five years now. And Lily had been determined to find him. To find out what had happened. How he’d survived. Why he hadn’t contacted her.

  A guarded hurt always accompanied that knowledge. Hurt and, if she let it, anger. In all these years, he hadn’t contacted her. She didn’t know what that meant. And she needed to find out.

  It wasn’t going to be today, though, she told herself, no matter that this man had given her heart a scare.

  He moved on and Lily regrouped. She headed toward the nurses’ station. Soon, she promised herself. She would go to see him soon. It was still a question of courage. Of confronting a ghost.

  She’d taken a huge chance coming to Manny after all these years. True, it wasn’t as if she could have contacted him sooner. It was only eight months ago when she was watching an old news documentary on the elite Special Forces that she’d seen him.

  Talk about heart-stopping moments. She’d recognized him on the tape immediately even though she’d been stunned to see him alive and had no inkling how he’d ended up in the U.S. Army.

  It had taken her months of Internet searches and dead ends to finally locate him, another month to come to terms with the reality of confronting him. And then, when the job opening here at the BMC had come up—well, it seemed like an omen. Karma. Kismet. Whatever.

  The offshoot was, she’d moved to Boston. And some stranger who reminded her of Manny had just shocked her into remembering that her search was almost over.

  Switching gears, Lily spotted Gracie filing charts. “Hey, Gracie. I’m yours for the next ten minutes. What can I do for you?”

  Exactly ten minutes later, the confusion cleared up, Lily headed back down the hall toward her office. A heated debate in rapid-fire Spanish blasted from behind a curtained treatment area and stopped her.

  When the “debate” rapidly accelerated to an argument, she headed toward the curtain, whipped it open, and stepped inside.

  Her heart bumped up again when she encountered the tall Latino she’d seen earlier. Then as now, he stood with his broad back to her, faced off with a resident and a uniformed officer over a patient lying prone on a stretcher. Both the officer and the resident were agitated and scowling.

  “This is a hospital, gentlemen,” Lily advised them in a stern but hushed voice. “I’d suggest you work your problems out elsewhere.”

  They immediately quieted at the authority in her tone; the two men facing her looked sheepish. The Latino’s shoulders stiffened. Slowly, he turned around.

  And for the second time today, Lily’s heart stalled, kick-started, and fired.

  Manny.

  It really was Manny.

  Her knees buckled.

  He reached out and grabbed her elbow, steadying her. Just as swiftly, he pulled away. Eyes as black as onyx and every bit as hard searched her face, clearly as stunned at seeing her as she was at seeing him.

  Time stopped. Shifted to another dimension, even another reality, as she stared, unable to absorb anything but the pure uncensored rancor emanating from him like ice from a glacier. If possible, his eyes grew even harder, knifelike, as his gaze cut into hers.

  Finally, she found her voice. “Manny?…My God…It is you.”

  Just as quickly, she lost the power of speech. When he ripped his gaze away from her, it felt like he’d ripped a piece of her soul along with it.

  Reeling again at the force of it, she grabbed a gurney for support and hung on.

  “We’ll settle this down at the precinct,” Manny told the uniformed officer. Then he shouldered around her and, without another word, left—but not before shooting her a look that horrified her.

  Rage.

  Hatred.

  Unqualified bitterness.

  They all hit her with the impact of a head-on collision with a train.

  Lily couldn’t make herself move. Could only stare at the space where Manny Ortega had stood, her thoughts jumbled and stalled, her hands shaking.

  Emotions bombarded her—joy…disbelief…shock. Along with confusion and pain. They circled like a funnel cloud, immobilizing her where she shivered in the wake of his departure that left a chill as icy as an arctic front. The scent of musk and male that even the antiseptic hospital smell couldn’t dilute lingered.

  “Ms. Campora?”

  Startled, she snapped her gaze to the resident and realized he must have addressed her once before.

  “You okay? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

  Oh God. If he only knew.

  “Fine…I’m fine,” she managed, wishing her lie at least sounded credible.

  “You and Ortega,” the uniform put in, unable to contain his curiosity, “you know each other?”

  “Um. Yeah.” She nodded, still mired somewhere between a long-ago Central American summer and the improbable reality that was today.

  “Long…long time ago,” she said when she realized both the officer and the resident were waiting for more. “What…um, what exactly was the problem here?” she asked, attempting to regain some semblance of professionalism when all she really wanted to do was chase after Manny.

  And do what? Let him slice you to ribbons with his glare?

  A thousand questions about what had prompted his hatred wove together in her mind, voiding one another out.

  “Detective Ortega wanted to question the patient,” the resident said.

  “Crazy cop wanted to beat the hell outta me!”

  For the first time, Lily became aware of the teenage gangbanger lying on the gurney. The bandage wrapped around his forehead seeped blood. She’d been in Boston long enough now that she recognized the scarf tied around his bicep as the colors of a Hispanic gang whose members frequented the ER.

  And she’d known that Manny was on the police force. Had actually anticipated a similar scenario…running into him in the ER. Having chance take away the necessity of going to him.

  Well, chance had done just that.

  Nowhere in her imagination, however, had she anticipated his reaction. Shock, yes. Surprise, absolutely.

  But hatred?

  “Hey—I’m bleeding here!”

  The patient’s aggravated demand snapped her back to the moment.

  “Stow the theatrics, Diego,” the officer said. “Ortega saved your sorry ass and you know it.

  “I’m sorry, ma’am. I’m Officer Mullnix.” He extended a hand.

  Lily shook it. “Lily Campora.”

  “You sure you’re okay?” Mullnix asked. “You’re shaking.”

  “Fine. I’m fine,” she insisted.

  She tucked her hands in the pockets of her white jacket and balled her fingers into fists to steady them. “Detective Ortega—do you work with him?”

  “No, ma’am, but we do work out of the same precinct.”

  “Hey! What about me? I’m still bleedin’.”

  Lily glanced at the patient, then at the resident. “Are we all squared away here?”

  “We are.”

  “Then treat your patient, Doctor.”

  She slipped out of the cubicle, then walked straight to her office on rubber legs. She sank down behind her desk, clasped her shaking hands together on top of it, and stared into space.

  Manny.

  Memories she’d schooled herself not to relive resurrected themselves in vivid, living color and scent and sensation. A hot thrill of awareness arrowed through her. The reality of Manny’s reaction doused it like a bucket of cold water.

  She ran a still-trembling hand through her hair. So much for sweet reunions.

  Not that sweet was what she’d wanted. Not after all these years. She’d hoped for cordial. Maybe even affectionate. And yet…

  She heaved a ragged breath. And yet she’d gotten so much more. He still tripped all those triggers. The damp palms, the weak knees, an almost Pavlovian ache low in her belly. Woman low. An ache she hadn’t tended to in more years than she cared to remember.

  An
ache he’d always known how to satisfy.

  At least that beautiful boy she’d known a lifetime ago in Nicaragua had known.

  And there was the difference.

  Manolo Ortega was no longer a boy. He was, very clearly, a man.

  Old. Harder. More gorgeous than ever.

  Angry. With her. Guess she had her answer as to why he hadn’t contacted her.

  She leaned back, breathed deep in an effort to stop the trembling, then dragged her hands through her hair again.

  He hated her. God. Violently hated her.

  She wasn’t mistaken about that. His fast exit added an exclamation point to a very definite statement. And she had no idea why.

  She swallowed back a rolling nausea, vaguely aware that her cell phone was ringing. With impatience she unclipped it from her belt and, with clumsy fingers, flipped it open. “Lily Campora.”

  And just when she’d thought she’d experienced the biggest shock of her life, she received news that gripped her heart with terror.

  CHAPTER 7

  Manny unlocked the door to his townhouse, walked inside, and shut it carefully behind him—just to prove to himself that he could do something with care. That he had control of his actions when inside, it felt like a bomb was ticking to its final countdown.

  That he had control over his life when in reality, life had control over him. Total and complete control.

  Lily Campora.

  He tipped his head back, breathed deep, and closed his eyes. His heart rate ratcheted up just thinking about her.

  “Cristo.” Of all the demons from his past that haunted him, she still topped the list.

  And she was here. In Boston.

  How perfect was that?

  He walked into the uncluttered townhouse done in dark woods and blacks and tossed the keys to his SUV on the counter that separated the kitchen from the living area. Then he shrugged out of his shoulder holster and tucked it up into a cabinet.

  Several moments later, he found himself standing, hands on hips, staring into space. Wanting to break something.

  Wanting, very badly, to break something.

  Wanting it so badly that he walked purposefully to the fridge and dug around for a Corona.

  “Hell, it’s five o’clock somewhere,” he muttered, and twisted the cap off the bottle.

  Lily.

  In Boston.

  For how long? he wondered, and tossed the cap toward the sink.

  He’d lived here almost five years now, and ironically, he was two weeks’ notice away from leaving the department and heading south to Florida. Two weeks and a shitload of restlessness that had prompted him to quit the force and join Ethan Garrett and the crew at E.D.E.N., Inc., as a security specialist.

  Two weeks away from being gone.

  And he runs into Lily.

  What the fuck did that mean?

  He leaned back against the kitchen counter, tipped up the beer bottle, and swallowed a long, deep pull.

  He believed in fate. Kismet. Whatever you wanted to call it. But by the same token, he didn’t want to believe there was a grand plan that involved running into Lily Campora again.

  Not after all these years. Not after all this hate.

  The clock on the kitchen wall ticked loudly into the utter silence of his thoughts. Because of Lily, the last time he’d seen his family intact was seventeen years ago. He flashed on a memory of watching through the porthole of a U.S. Army transport plane as his homeland was obscured behind a layer of clouds.

  He’d left everything because of her betrayal. Left his family. Left a fight he believed in with the promise that he could return and make a difference. Only he never had.

  He’d left to become a soldier as Cougar had suggested, had advanced quickly to the Rangers and then on to Special Forces, where he’d worn the Green Beret.

  A year came and went. It was finally time for him to return home. And then the unthinkable happened. Congress pulled the funds on Reagan’s Contra effort. And just like that, the war was over. The Sandinistas ruled.

  Manny’s fight was lost. So was his country.

  It was ten years before he’d dare sneak back again. To a father who was broken financially and emotionally. A mother who struggled to hold things together. A sister who had been raped by Poveda’s men in retaliation for Manny’s allegiance to the freedom fighters. She, too, was broken. No longer knew how to trust or smile.

  Just as he no longer trusted. Not in women. Not in an emotion he’d fallen prey to because of one woman.

  He tipped up the Corona again just as someone knocked on his door and shattered the silence that roared with memories and truths that haunted him every day of his life.

  Mrs. Feinstein, he thought with a weary sigh. The old woman had a sixth sense when it came to knowing when he was home. Or high-powered binoculars, he thought grimly.

  He put up with her daily neighborhood reports because he understood that she was lonely. And because she was a crazy, sweet old bird who sometimes brought him rock-hard cookies that he thanked her for graciously, then promptly tossed in the trash. The woman could not cook.

  He wasn’t in a mood, however, to deal with her today. Didn’t think he could take a twenty-minute dissertation on every squealing tire, every suspicious-looking “thug,” and the ever popular state of her bursitis.

  He took another pull. Ignored the knock. And felt his heart rate rev and his blood run hot as his thoughts strayed back to Lily.

  Not a day went by—not one day in seventeen years—that he hadn’t thought of her.

  And he didn’t know who he hated more for that weakness. Himself for giving in to it or her for what she’d done to him and ultimately to his family.

  When the pounding finally stopped, he heaved a breath of relief.

  Then his cell phone rang.

  Annoyed, he slipped it off his belt and checked the incoming number. He’d been prepared to ignore it, too, until he recognized his precinct prefix.

  Frowning, he flipped open the phone. “Ortega.”

  “It’s Mullnix. Answer your damn door; I know you’re in there.”

  The line went dead. Manny flipped his phone closed and set it on the counter. Then he stared at the door. Next to Mrs. Feinstein, Mullnix was about the last person he wanted to deal with right now.

  He couldn’t hit Mrs. Feinstein. He couldn’t hit Mullnix, either, but thinking about it gave him a helluva lot of pleasure. The rookie had pissed him off at the hospital with Juan Diego today.

  On a resigned breath, Manny walked to the door, wishing he could shake the image of Lily and how she’d looked. As beautiful as he remembered. More so. The years had been good to her. She’d matured with elegance. With incredible beauty.

  And she betrayed you, he reminded himself as he felt a slow slide toward sentiment.

  He checked the peephole, saw Mullnix’s ugly mug on the other side, and swung open the door. “Can’t this wait until tomorrow?”

  He’d barely gotten the words out when he realized the young officer wasn’t alone.

  Lily Campora stood beside him. Her eyes were swollen and red, as if she’d been crying; her expression was grief stricken and shocky.

  Like the very first time Manny had seen her.

  He’d been a fool then. He was no man’s or woman’s fool now.

  Manny shifted his gaze to Mullnix. Glared. “Why the fuck did you bring her here?” Manny snapped, telling himself he wasn’t moved by Lily’s tears. He’d fallen into that trap once before.

  “Don’t be angry with him. I made him bring me.” Lily shouldered past Mullnix and into Manny’s townhouse.

  Manny watched her walk inside, then directed a glare at Mullnix. “What? Her gun was bigger than yours?”

  The rookie held up his hands. “Always was a sucker for a woman’s tears.” He gave Manny a mock salute and walked away.

  Manny stood at the open door for a long moment. Considered walking the same way Mullnix had and leaving her there. Not coming back un
til he was certain she was gone.

  But she’d just come back. And he would have solved exactly nothing.

  He shut the door, drew a bracing breath, and turned to her.

  “I…I’m sorry to…intrude. But I don’t…I don’t have a choice. And I don’t have time to do anything but just spit it out. Manny…I need your help.”

  Of all the things he’d expected her to say, that wasn’t one of them.

  I’m sorry, Manny. Forgive me, Manny. Why are you alive, Manny?

  Instead, it’s I need your help?

  But then, she’d used him before. Why not expect that she’d want to use him again?

  “And you used to be so subtle,” he said, refusing to be swayed by the misery on her face. “If I recall, it’s more your style to play things out until I ask if I can help you.”

  Confusion played across her beautiful face. “What are you talk—”

  He held up a hand, cutting her off, wise enough now not to let her emotional plea get to him. “Save it. I’m not the baby-faced boy you used in Managua. And I’m not as easily fooled. Whatever it is you think you want from me, I don’t have it to give.”

  “My son is missing.” Tears spilled down her cheeks as she blurted out the words. Agony wrestled with the desperation in her eyes. “Please. Manny. Please. I don’t know who else to turn to. I don’t know what to do.”

  Lily had a son. Why that cut, why that surprised, he didn’t know. Just like he didn’t know why he had to brace himself against a renegade urge to wrap her in his arms when a sob wrenched her slight body.

  Hate her or not, a child was in trouble. The cop in him took over. Stone cold. Concerned with just the facts. Sworn to do his duty.

  “Where and when was he last seen? I’ll notify the precinct.”

  She shook her head, pulled herself together. “No. No, he’s not in the States. Three weeks ago he…he left with a student exchange program to go to Sri Lanka. But today…I got a call today…right after…well, right after I saw you. He and his host family…Oh God, Manny…it looks like they might have been abducted.”