Her hands trembled. She thought she might be sick as the red and blue swirling lights made her woozy. How could he think so calmly with guns aimed at them from every direction? She took a deep breath, told herself to believe that they wouldn’t shoot first and ask questions later.
“Come out slowly. Hands up.”
“Now?” Melinda asked.
“Let me go first.” Clay cracked his door, pushed it open farther with his foot and raised both hands above the door so the cops could clearly see that he held no weapons.
“Lie on the ground. Arms above your head.”
Clay stood perfectly still, his arms held above his shoulders. “There are two more people in the car. A man and a woman. They will come out one at a time. Don’t shoot. We have no intention of resisting.”
“Lie on the ground. Arms above your head,” the voice from the megaphone repeated.
Clay did as they ordered. He moved slowly, taking at least a full minute to go to the ground.
“Will they handcuff him?” she asked Barry.
“Not until we’re all out of the car. They won’t approach until they’re sure it’s safe.”
“You in the car. Come out, show us your hands first, then lie on the ground.”
“Okay.” She took a deep breath. “I’ll go next.” As per Clay’s instructions, she waited for the man with the megaphone to repeat his orders. With excruciating patience, she waited then slowly scooted over to the driver’s side and exited the car so she could lie close to Clay.
Numb, shaking, she followed the instructions until she lay flat on the pavement, a few loose stones cutting into her shoulder, but she dared not move to a more comfortable position. As Barry followed her out of the car, she asked Clay, “What happens next?”
“It depends on who has jurisdiction.”
“What do you mean?”
“If we’re lucky, the local cops will want the collar.”
“If we’re unlucky?”
“The military or the FBI will take us in for questioning. At worst, they’ll take us to the CIA.”
Barry lay on the ground next to them. The police, weapons aimed and ready to fire, moved in.
“Clay.”
“Yeah?”
“I’m scared.”
“Anyone in his right mind would be scared. The trick is to think of something else.”
Like what Bull Dog had done to her family. The man had probably given the orders to kill both her parents. The man had covered up his crimes for three decades, and he wasn’t going to get away with it any longer. They had him cold. All she had to do was keep quiet for three hours. If she lived that long.
As men roughly cuffed their hands behind their backs and shoved them toward the chopper, her legs proved wobbly. Remembering to use any excuse to stall, she let herself sink to the concrete, made two men carry her to the helicopter with no outside markings to indicate which arm of the government had just taken them prisoner.
Was she about to become one of those people who just disappeared and was never heard from again?
No one said a word during the one-hour helicopter ride. They landed at a small airport and were then placed in a military aircraft. She overheard the pilot speaking with ground control and learned they were headed for Virginia. Was this some kind of covert operation where Bull Dog himself was going to question them?
She shuddered in terror at the thought of facing the man who had ordered her parents’ deaths, the man who’d betrayed her country. A man who had the power of practically the entire government at his command.
WHEN THEY FINALLY landed in Virginia, Barry, Clay and Melinda completed their journey by another unmarked helicopter. Clay estimated that they only had to refrain from speaking another ten minutes or so before the newspapers would hit the streets, and it would be too late for Tower to squelch the story.
However, Clay well knew from his training that ten minutes of excruciating pain could reduce the strongest of men to a babbling idiot. They possessed one advantage. Tower had no idea of when the deadline was. Chances were he wouldn’t resort to drastic measures so quickly because he didn’t realize the deadline was so soon.
He’d probably separate them and leave them in cells to sweat over the possibilities of torture. And if they were lucky, by then the deadline would have passed.
MELINDA DIDN’T KNOW whether to be happy or unhappy about being locked in a cell by herself. Her wounded arm throbbed, but the pain had dulled. Here, at least, she wouldn’t have to resist answering questions. No one had said anything to her at all.
Sitting uncomfortably on the cot, she wondered how much time had passed. She began to understand after several minutes how the mind could devise its own tortures. She wanted to talk to Clay. She wanted to know the time. She wanted to know who was holding her captive and what they would do next.
Slightly cold and fighting off the growing panic, she warmed herself with the memory of Clay’s declaration of love.
Had he really said those words? Or had she wished for them so hard that in a moment of extreme stress, her mind heard what she wanted it to?
Standing, she paced. Surely fifteen or twenty minutes had passed?
Suddenly, she heard footsteps, and her heart skipped in fear. Would she be able to hold out and follow Clay’s instructions? Or worse, had they come to shoot her?
Tense, she turned and saw Clay. She let out a breath of relief as he, not some stranger, walked toward her cell, a grin on his face, the key to her cell in his hands. Had he escaped?
“What happened?”
“CNN got an advance copy of the paper. The news broke an hour ago on every radio station. Tower, Aleksi and Jon Khorkina have been arrested. I’ll have to testify in front of a closed congressional hearing.”
She sagged with relief. “It’s over?”
“Yes.” Clay unlocked her cell, took her into his arms and captured her lips. “Life’s going to return to normal. The day after tomorrow, you can go back home.”
Epilogue
Life hadn’t returned to normal. In fact, life might not ever be normal for Melinda again. As she nervously dressed to meet her brother, Jake Cochran, and his fiancée, attorney Cassidy Atkins, as well as her sister, architect Alexandra Golden, and her fiancé, ex-CIA agent Roarke Stone, for the very first time, she wondered for the hundredth time why Clay hadn’t at least called her.
At first she’d made excuses for him. As head of his department he had to be extremely busy catching up and overseeing massive changes that had been a direct result of the congressional hearing. But after the first week had passed and she’d resumed her relationships with friends and gone back to work, she began to think that she really had imagined Clay’s one-sentence declaration of love.
No one could be so busy that he couldn’t spare sixty seconds for a phone call. By the second week, a feeling of constant anticipation settled in her stomach, which rolled into a tight knot every time her phone rang. Now, three weeks later, she no longer expected Clay to be on the other end of the phone when it rang. She’d lost hope and knew she had to go on with her life.
She’d worked full tilt on her plans to open the salon, bought new clothes for the big family get-together and gone through the motions of her life. But the future didn’t seem as bright without Clay in it. During the day, she refused to think about the lonely tears she’d occasionally shed at night, but she couldn’t stop the wonderfully erotic dreams that made her awaken wanting him so badly her heart ached.
She had to be sensible, relegate their experience to a fling and keep telling herself that someday it wouldn’t hurt so much. She had to get a grip and put the past behind her.
She didn’t feel ready to meet her siblings but could put it off no longer. An hour later, she drew a deep breath before entering the private hotel suite Jake had reserved for the family get-together. Pasting a smile on her face, Melinda knocked, determined to keep her private sorrows to herself.
When Clay opened the door with a wide smil
e, she thought she must be hallucinating. Her lower jaw dropped, leaving her mouth open. But she couldn’t be imagining those broad shoulders, or his familiar green eyes or the mirth on lips scented with cherry gum. Still, she actually pinched her forearm to make sure she was awake.
“What are you—”
He cut off her question, sweeping her into his arms, his lips coming down hungrily on hers. Responding instinctively, she threw her arms around his neck, pressed herself against him. She heard vague cheering and clapping beyond the roar in her ears.
Her brother and sister! Oh God! What must they be thinking?
Mortified at her behavior, heat rushed to her face. She placed her palms on Clay’s chest and pushed him back, embarrassment fueling her anger. “Just what the hell do you think you’re doing, mister?”
“Little sister has a temper,” she heard a male voice say with a masculine hum of amusement.
“I’m kissing you,” Clay answered, his eyes looking as if he wanted to devour her whole.
“And doing a fine job of it, too,” commented a dark-haired woman whose eyes were exactly the same whiskey shade as Melinda’s and had to be her sister, Alexandra. Her sister was eyeing her with loving amusement and, despite her embarrassment, Melinda knew they would soon be the best of friends.
A tall man with dark hair, dark eyes and a serious demeanor except for the upward quirk of his lips tried to sound serious as he tapped Clay on the shoulder. “I’m assuming your intentions are honorable.”
“Jake, stuff it.” Cassidy, her brother’s golden-haired fiancée, drew her arm through the crook of Jake’s elbow and pulled him away after giving Melinda a friendly smile. “Let’s see if you can kiss me like that.”
Suddenly something beeped. Both her siblings and their future mates checked their beepers and phones. Clay leaned down and whispered in her ear. “I’ve missed you.”
“You have a funny way of showing it. You couldn’t find time to call?”
Jake looked suspiciously at her purse that continued to beep. “Maybe you should check your purse.”
“I don’t have a—”
Cassidy peered around Jake. “Something’s definitely beeping in there.”
Melinda opened her purse, intending to show them she didn’t have a beeper, a pager or a cell phone. “You all aren’t listening. I don’t…” Her fingers closed around a soft velvet box that she didn’t recognize. With a frown she plucked the beeping black velvet box from her purse.
“Open it,” Clay told her, his eyes sparkling with mischief that told her he’d slipped the box into her purse during their embrace. She’d been so glad to see him, she hadn’t noticed.
Still she hesitated.
Her sister nudged her. “Go on. Open it already.”
Hands suddenly shaking, Melinda opened the box. And gasped. Inside was the most exquisite fiery opal surrounded by diamonds.
Clay touched the center stone and the beeping stopped. “Marry me?”
Her throat choked with tears. She wanted so badly to say yes, but she couldn’t stand weeks and months and years of heartache like the last three. She didn’t know if she could live with Clay putting his work first, always wondering when he would come home, feeling as if a phone call to him might interfere with a national emergency.
She snapped the box shut, pushed the ring into his hands. “You’re already married.”
“What?” Jake practically shouted.
“Calm down, Jake. Hot tempers seem to run in your family, but I’m sure Clay’s not a bigamist,” Cassidy told her lover. “There must be another explanation.”
“Could we have a little privacy here?” Clay asked.
“Not a chance,” Roarke, Alexandra’s handsome friend, butted in as if he were family. From the way her sister looked adoringly at the man, Melinda expected the passion in their upcoming marriage to last through the years. “I think you owe us all an explanation.”
“He’s married to his job,” Melinda finally explained, sure her cheeks were showing her mortification.
Clay shook his head. “Not anymore.”
“You quit?” Jake arched a brow.
“I hired three assistants. And here’s the best part.” Clay grinned widely. “As head of the department, I’ve decided our old headquarters are insufficient. We’re moving our operations center to a new location—in Daytona, Florida.”
Melinda glared at him through her tears. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I just did.”
“Damn you, Clay.”
Jake nudged Alexandra. “With that temper, she’s definitely our little sister.”
“Speak for yourself,” Alexandra muttered. “I don’t have a temper.”
Roarke whispered in her ear. “Guess I haven’t riled you enough lately.”
Melinda ignored them and faced Clay with her hands fisted on her hips. “I don’t hear from you for three weeks, not one word, then you show up—” tears flowed down Melinda’s cheeks “—and you, you…”
“I wanted all the details arranged before I sprang the news. I wanted to surprise you. I wanted everything to be perfect so you wouldn’t hesitate to be my wife.”
Melinda flung her arms around Clay’s shoulders and pulled his head down for a kiss.
Her family broke into whistles, claps and cheers.
Jake uncorked a bottle of champagne. “I think Melinda just said yes.”
ISBN: 978-1-4603-5086-7
LOVERS IN HIDING
Copyright © 2001 by Susan Hope Kearney
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*The Sutton Babies
†Hide and Seek
Lovers in Hiding Page 19
