Alex.
He’d glared at her with frosty eyes that took her breath as quickly as they’d taken stock of Gabe’s shirt she wore, the state of his house and the dead man on his front room floor. Alex should’ve glowed. He radiated enough anger and hostility.
“Any air bubbles?”
“No, but I’m afraid he’ll die if the paramedics don’t hurry.”
“Like hell he will.” Alex brushed her hands out of the way. “Not one more goddamned time. Not now. Not ever again! Sonofabitchin’ bastards. None of this should’ve happened.”
Shelby sat back on her haunches and watched him work, her heart in her throat. Alex seemed to think he held the deciding vote, that Gabe couldn’t die just because he’d said so.
“You’re Alex.”
He nodded with one short sharp glance, his hands cupped over the cloths she’d used to staunch Gabe’s bleeding. “Where’s my wife? Where’s Kelsey? Is she safe?”
Shelby wiped her tears with the back of her bloody hand. “Yes. Zack took her to Richmond.”
“Good. Damned good. Good man, Zack. Gabe, too. I only hire the best, and I’m not going to change.” Alex pressed with all his might into Gabe’s chest. Veins bulged up his neck and across his forehead. “Live, damn you. Don’t you dare die on me,” he hissed.
“Kelsey believes in you,” Shelby offered, needing to connect with this intense man before the paramedics arrived. “She loves you.”
He closed his eyes, his lower jaw jutted forward. “God, I’ve hurt her. Too much this time.”
“You left the rose, didn’t you?”
Alex nodded, the anguish in his voice raw. “Bastards killed me. Kept me under. Wouldn’t let me leave so I showed them. I left. Had to. They kept finding me. I kept breaking out. Damn them all to hell.”
He couldn’t seem to speak without cursing, but Shelby didn’t care. The man knew what he was doing. He’d stopped the blood flowing from Gabe’s wound.
“She knew you’d never hurt her,” Shelby assured him, placing her hands over his again. “She never doubted you, Mr. Stewart. Not once.”
A siren shrilled in the distance. Help was on its way. She focused on Gabe. His breathing had shallowed, but remained steady. He’d grown pale, his handsome features sunken, and his lips gray. Shelby pressed her mouth to his ear and let her broken heart speak. “Please don’t die on me, Gabe. Not yet. Please—”
“He’s not going to die, damn it,” Alex growled.
A heavy fist pounded at the front entry. Shelby hurried to let the first responders in. Cautiously, she unlatched the bullet-riddled door. Three men in paramedic uniforms stood on Kelsey’s steps.
“Your badges, please.” Trust was no longer a given. What had happened to Alex would NOT happen again, not on her watch. All three handed over their badges. Good enough. They were who they claimed to be.
She stepped aside and allowed access, pointing to Gabe. “Two GSW victims. One survivor. Take care of him first.”
Alex came to stand with her, his bloodied hands fisted at his side while the medics dropped to the floor and worked frantically on Gabe. One inserted an IV line into his arm while another applied a pressure bandage to the hole in his chest. The third barked stats into the two-way radio on his collar, communicating with the hospital.
“Fallon?” Alex sneered at the sheet-draped body beneath the window.
“Yes. He was inside when I got up this morning. Said he wanted Kelsey, but Gabe intercepted him. Fallon shot him without remorse. Gabe returned fire, but Fallon wouldn’t give up his gun. Gabe kept shooting until he did.”
“Good,” Alex spat. “Rat bastard deserved to die.”
Shelby winced. The rage emanating off Alex was so strong, she couldn’t picture Kelsey with him. Kelsey was everything he was not.
Alex stood alone. He seemed out of place, as if he wasn’t sure if he should stay or leave. A growl rumbled deep in his chest, no doubt an internal curse that had more to do with his wife not being where he needed her to be. He’d come home for her, not the aftermath of a bloody shootout in his front room.
Shelby reached for his hand. “Can I ask where you’ve been all this time?”
He accepted just the tips of her fingers in his grasp. “In the service of the damned President of the United States. Like I had a sonofabitchin’ choice.”
“You were there last night, weren’t you? You were at the World War II Memorial when Sam and Gabe diffused the dirty bomb. You know Mr. Becker.”
Alex snorted. “Hell, yeah. Bastard killed me. Stop asking. I can’t talk about it.”
“Gabe saved the world. At least he saved D.C.” She needed Alex to know what kind of a man his junior agent truly was.
“If that shirt you’re wearing means what I think it does, you’re a damned smart woman.” He released her fingers. “Damn it to hell. I want my wife.”
A good Marine does not waste time lying around in a hospital. Yes, Gabe had been shot. Yes, he was a little slow on the uptake and tired easily, but so? Leathernecks don’t lie around waiting to heal. They keep on keeping on. Forward. Charging ahead. All that crap.
Gabe knew it now. Fallon never meant to kill him—at least not with that first shot. The bastard’s bullet missed Gabe’s lung upon entry, but shattered. One pesky fragment had ricocheted off his left clavicle and lodged against a rib while another pierced his lung. Not a big deal for a hardheaded Marine who had already survived the loss of his foot. One little bullet hole was damned near nothing.
The good doctor in the emergency room dug the bullet out, along with the other pieces, and sewed him up. Gabe spent the night flat on his back with Shelby close by while two units of blood dripped into him along with whatever was in that IV bag. By then, he’d been pumped full of antibiotics and pain meds. He was feeling a little worse for wear, but good enough.
Besides—Alex was alive! That news alone gave Gabe the energy he needed to get back on his feet. Shelby had whispered it to him the moment he woke up from surgery. Kelsey had been right all along. Alex was alive!
The local news coverage blaring across all channels filled in the details. While Gabe and Shelby were busy helping Sam Becker diffuse the bomb and save D.C., Vice President Winston went and got himself killed. That was the explosion they’d heard.
It seemed the VP was in a hurry to leave D.C. He’d ordered his helicopter to standby on the White House lawn, then showed up with three Secret Service agents and a stranger on his heels. The helicopter pilot’s account of the events made for sensational news.
Winston had said he needed to be in the air within minutes. “Make it so.”
Once the chopper lifted off, the VP got a little weird. He ordered the stranger to shoot one of the three Secret Service agents. When the stranger refused, the other two agents turned on him and fired.
The pilot seemed outright baffled at what went down on his watch and mostly behind his back. He’d tried to set Eagle Two back on the ground, but the VP bellowed about some bomb. Said he had to get out of D.C. before it went off. Keep flying!
While the VP ranted, the stranger returned fire with both renegade Secret Service agents, but not before one of them accidently shot the VP. Again, the frantic pilot attempted to set the chopper down despite the VP screaming at him not to land, but the craft had lost its hover. He had no choice. It crashed. Its rotors took out a good portion of the White House front lawn and the fence. The fuselage, recently refueled with jet fuel because the VP specifically demanded a full tank, burst into flames.
The pilot explained how he never showed up with less than a full tank in Eagle Two anyway. In his opinion, Vice President Winston must have gone berserk.
The stranger and the honest Secret Service agent pulled the VP and the pilot from the wreckage. Before they could return for the renegade agents, the craft exploded. The stranger, whom nobody seemed able to adequately describe except for his icy-blue eyes, dodged back into the flaming aircraft and retrieved the VP’s briefcase.
&nbs
p; The hero of the night ended up being the first D.C. police officer on the scene. The stranger slapped the VP’s briefcase into the bewildered man’s chest and told him to “make sure the President gets this.”
Details were still sketchy, but the FBI announced they had linked a local terrorist organization called Chaos Now to the renegade Secret Service agents and possibly Vice President Winston. Police held the chopper pilot as a possible co-conspirator, although he protested he knew nothing. The stranger who’d assisted in rescuing the pilot and the VP? Nowhere to be found.
“I’m going,” Gabe told Shell again. He’d already re-attached his prosthetic before breakfast arrived. Time to move. “Get these tubes out of me. My boss is alive and I’m going to find him, wherever he is.”
“It’s an IV line, not tubes,” she replied, “and no. You’re staying. Get back into bed.”
“I’m going.” Both bare feet were on the floor by then. True, only one could feel the cool linoleum. Again, so what? With two good legs or not, Marines don’t end operations in a flimsy hospital gown with the guys sending rude get well cards and flowers. Or worse yet, paying a visit. No way. They hustled back to HQ and debriefed their CO. Gabe needed to move out of there. Fast.
Shelby had other plans. “Stop being difficult. You’re staying.”
He lifted his ass off the bed, despite the draft on his bare derrière. “And I said—”
“You’re staying,” Zack muttered at the open door. “Cover that rearview, Cartwright. Damn it. Ladies are in the room.”
Gabe glanced over his shoulder, dropping back to the bed because there stood Kelsey, her eyebrows lifted in surprise. He waved her and Zack into his room while he tucked a sheet over his legs, ignoring the heat wave creeping up his neck. The last thing she needed to see was his ass, but did she already know that her husband was back in town? He gulped. She had to know. It was on all the news channels. But if she did, why was she there?
“Kelsey! You’re back.” Both ladies hugged each other as if they’d been separated for years instead of one long day and a night.
Zack ambled in, offering the seat by the window to Kelsey. He dropped a brown paper bag near the counter. “I brought you a change of clothes and your boots, kid.”
Gabe tamped down his excitement, not sure how to break the news. Zack didn’t seem to know, either. What’d they do? Avoid all the news channels all night long?
“What the hell have you and Kelsey been doing since Mark told you to get out of town?” Gabe had to know. He would’ve been glued to the news, waiting for the dirty bomb to blow. What could’ve been more important?
Zack crossed his arms over his chest and shot Kelsey one of his famous spiked eyebrows. “Don’t ask me. Ask the boss.”
She shrugged and lifted her brows too, only she looked guilty. “I wouldn’t leave town, Gabe, and he couldn’t make me, so, umm. We spent the night at my new vet’s animal hospital. Because of Dr. Carin Davis, my boys are going to be okay. Whisper took a drink of water this morning and Smoke got to his feet.”
“And I’ve got a kink in my back that runs all the way down to my boots,” Zack growled, his hand to the back of his neck. “She slept in the kennel with Whisper and—”
“And you slept with Smoke?” Gabe asked, a big shitty smile cracking his face. What a cool picture, this big tough ex-Marine sleeping on the ground with a sick dog. All night. No wonder they hadn’t heard the news, but wow. Were they in for a surprise.
Gabe wanted to be on his feet when he told them. He tried again. “Give me a hand, Zack. Come on. Get this IV line out of my hand. I’ve got something to tell you.”
All he got in answer was a shrug from two massive shoulders and the twinkle in Zack’s brown eyes. “Don’t look at me, bro. I’ve been where you are. You’ve been shot. I say you’re staying.”
“Like hell. He’s going.”
Oh God, no. Alex had just cleared the door. Damn. He looked ready to get back to work, dressed in his charcoal-gray business suit, crisp blue shirt, and black tie—and shocked as hell to see Kelsey.
She jumped to her feet, one hand to her mouth. “Alex?”
He froze. “Kelsey?”
Holy shit. Gabe didn’t want to be there the day a woman kicked his boss’s ass, but there he was, smack dab in the middle of what was no doubt going to be the Armageddon of all marital discords.
“Alex,” she whispered. “You’re... alive? You’re here?”
The man took two long strides into the room, his arms outstretched before Kelsey threw herself into them.
Shelby sidled closer to Gabe, clutching his hands as the scene unfolded.
Kelsey had hold of Alex’s neck, her cheek pressed to his, her eyes closed and tears flowing. “You’re alive. I knew it. No one but Gabe and Zack believed me, but I knew it.”
The saddest groan crept out of Alex. No words, just a fierce intensity as he held his wife for the first time in too many days. He’d closed his eyes. Sheer agony etched his clean-shaven face, but his fingers were clamped onto his wife like grappling hooks.
She leaned back enough to look up into his face. Her hands smoothed over his nose and cheeks, up to his forehead and down the side of his face again, never breaking contact. Raking through his hair. “Where have you been?”
He didn’t answer, just kept holding her, the darkest shadow in his gaze.
The unthinkable happened. She cocked her arm and slapped his cheek with a hard right. “Tell me, Alex.” Her voice pitched ragged. “Where have you been?”
He never let go of her left arm while she slapped him again. “Tell me! What was so important that you had to do this to me? To us!”
Gabe held his breath.
Poor Alex, his face reddened from the slaps, his eyes glistening.
Poor Kelsey, tears dripping over her cheeks, her brows spiked and—So. Damned. Angry.
“You let me bury you! Do you have any idea how that felt? God, Alex, I saw your dead body at the morgue. I shook all of your friends’ hands and cried with them at your damned funeral. Roy and Murphy were there. Everyone was there. Every single one of your friends. Our friends. How could you do that to me? To them?”
He bit his bottom lip, as in he really bit it. A thin trickle of blood tracked down his chin, but she wasn’t through. She launched herself at him, pummeling his chest. “Say something. Damn you! Say something!”
He took the hit, another wretched groan lifting out of him, until, at last, he snagged her flailing wrists and pulled her struggling body into his chest. He buried his face in the crook of her neck. Still no explanation. No defense. Just sorrow so thick that Gabe could taste it.
Her rant turned to sobs in the circle of his arms, her face buried in his dress shirt. “I’m so mad at you,” she whined, her arms and hands moving under his suit jacket and over his back. “I knew you were alive. I knew you had to be doing something critical for national security or... or maybe the world... or something, damn you. I knew you’d never hurt me on purpose. I just knew it.”
The man still hadn’t offered a single word of self-defense, just held his wife as if he’d never let her go again, her feet lifted nearly off the floor. Great shudders shook his shoulders. Even with his eyes squeezed tight as they were, he could not hold back the tears that trickled down his face.
At last three very definite, very pain-filled words growled out of him. “I. Love. You.” That was all. No excuses. Just a battle weary warrior’s binding declaration to the sadly treated lady of his heart.
Kelsey sighed, and it seemed everyone in the room sighed with her. This was the hardest homecoming Gabe had ever witnessed.
“I missed you.” She hiccupped, her hands smoothing up and down his back under his jacket, comforting him. Maybe even forgiving him. “God, my poor Alex. I’ve missed you so much.”
Shelby sniffled, drawing Gabe’s gaze from his boss. The woman was a mess, crying along with Kelsey. Gabe handed her a tissue from his bedside table, then took one for himself. Zack watched fr
om the other side of the room, his arms folded across his chest, his eyes hooded.
“I never stopped loving you. Not even for a moment,” Kelsey cried, still burrowing into her husband’s broad chest, her head under his chin, and Gabe couldn’t deny the energy of this powerful couple. Now. At what had to be the worst moment of all their time together, they were locked in a death grip as if they were the only two in the room. Only it was more like a life grip, more binding than death.
Shelby lowered to the side of his bed, so Gabe scooted over and made a place for her to sit. She laid her head on his shoulder, crying at the tender scene that was taking place in front of them. Like him, she had no words.
At last, Alex eased Kelsey away enough to tip her chin up to meet his eyes, his thumbs on her teary cheeks. “I’m so sorry.”
She sniffed once, then lifted up on the tips of her toes. “No, Alex. I’m sorry,” she said, caressing his cheek. “I shouldn’t have hit you. I do trust you. I always have. I always will. And I know you. You would never hurt me. I was just so angry.” She’d barely offered her lips when he crushed his mouth to hers, and she was off her feet and in his arms.
God, that kiss. He ravaged her mouth and she gave it right back to him, her arms around his neck as if she’d never let him go again.
Gabe had to look away, the tender scene too intimate. Shelby sobbed into his neck, and he had a hard time holding it together, too. His eyes kept tearing up. Damn. Could any two people love each other more than the couple locked together in unconditional love right there in his hospital room? The kind of love that could forgive the unforgiveable and do it with a simple sigh? The kind that seemed able to see beyond anger and still cling together in the middle of a damned ugly storm?
It all made sense now. The Stewart’s tiny home. Their meticulously groomed yard. The tidy shed. The remodeling. It was a damned oyster with a hidden treasure. A pearl of immeasurable worth. The woman Alex loved.
Gabe (In the Company of Snipers Book 8) Page 35
