Secrets and Lies

by Maggie Shayne

  Selene backed up slowly, holding up her hands, muttering words Mel either couldn’t hear or couldn’t understand. They sounded foreign.

  The man placed a hand at the flat of Alex’s back and shoved him forward, and Alex stumbled a few steps before stopping himself.

  “Get over there with the others,” he ordered Alex. “Now!”

  Alex walked a few more steps toward the Brands, but not too far. He stayed very close, right between Mel and her family, facing them.

  “The rest of you drop your weapons,” Curnyn said.

  When they were slow to comply, he worked the action of the gun he held to Mel’s head. She could feel his hands shaking, wondered just how sensitive the trigger was, felt fear creeping through her.

  “You don’t want to do this, Curnyn. This isn’t honorable. Killing me for the sake of your cause and your people is one thing. But this isn’t the same. You’re using me to save your own life.”

  “Shut up. These people know you. They called you Mel. You’ve deceived me all along. You’re not Katerina.”

  “You got that right,” Alex muttered, turning to face them. “She’s ten times the woman Katerina is.”

  She met Alex’s eyes, and they were intense. They held her gaze and burned their message into her brain. She swore she knew what he was thinking. Oh, sure, she thought. She hadn’t been right about what Alex Stone had been thinking yet. Why would she start now?

  He shifted his gaze to the ground, then up to her, to the ground again, then up to her. Then his brows rose just a little.

  She moved her head downward, a very slight nod. She thought she understood.

  Alex seemed coiled, ready to spring. It was all up to her. God, did she have the courage to pull this off?

  “All I want is safe passage out of here,” Curnyn told Alex. “Across the border will be fine. I’ll let this one go when I get there. But if anyone tries to stop me, I promise you, she dies.”

  “Do you have any idea how sick I am of hearing that lame old threat?” Mel asked. “I mean, for God’s sake, Curnyn, if you’re gonna kill me, just do it already.”

  She drew her elbow back hard and fast into his solar plexus. The sudden pain and surprise made Curnyn loosen his grip on her neck, and she threw herself bodily to the ground. She hit hard, and it knocked the wind right out of her. The moment she hit the earth, Alex was lunging at the bastard, leaping on him like a pit bull.

  Curnyn’s gun went off as the two men went to the ground, rolling in the dirt, struggling for the weapon. It dropped from between them, and Mel scrambled to pick it up. Garrett and Wes were there instantly, pulling the two apart, wrestling the leader to his feet. Garrett handcuffed him and shoved him up against the nearest building.

  Alex was on the ground, breathing hard, and Mel rushed to him, gripping his arm and helping him to his feet. “Are you okay?”

  He got up slowly, brushing the dust from his knees, thighs, the front of his shirt. Then he paused, looking down and blinking slowly. “Well, I’ll be damned.”

  Mel looked down—and her heart seemed to skip a beat when she saw the red stain spreading on the front of Alex’s shirt.

  “Bastard shot me,” Alex said, lifting his bewildered gaze to her.

  “Alex?”

  He dropped to his knees.

  Mel dropped, too, gripping his shoulders. “God, he’s been shot! Alex! Alex, please.” She ripped his shirt open, but she could see only blood. It coated his chest, slick and shiny, and more seemed to be pulsing from the darkest spot, in the center.

  He fell over backward, and she went with him, but his eyes were closed and his body limp. “Somebody do something!” Mel shouted.

  “There’s a chopper on the way,” Garrett said, pocketing the radio he’d been using. “Ben? Wes?”

  Ben and Wes were already crouching beside Alex, spreading the shirt open. Ben said, “Chelsea, take care of Mel.”

  “It’s okay, hon, just let ’em be,” Chelsea said, tugging Mel out of the way.

  “No. God, no.” Mel let herself be pulled away, but only a few steps. “Not after all this. I can’t lose him. I can’t.”

  “Selene, get down here. We need you,” Wes snapped. To Mel he said, “Just give us some room, hon. We’ll try to keep the bleeding in check until help gets here.”

  Selene knelt with them, as the others backed off to give them room. Mel didn’t know what the hell was going on. But she trusted them. She trusted her sister, too. She didn’t back away very far, just far enough. Selene held pressure on the wound, closed her eyes, muttered to herself. Ben and Wes held their hands over hers, and they muttered, too. At first it seemed a garbled bunch of gibberish, all of them saying something different, none of which Mel could understand, but then it seemed to gel and settle into one mantra, which they repeated over and over, their voices taking on a melodic drone and falling into perfect rhythm. The words sounded Native American. And for a moment Mel swore there was a glow emanating from the three sets of hands pressed together in the center of Alex Stone’s chest. It was as if a soft white light glowed from that spot. But that couldn’t have been real, and it wasn’t. It vanished as soon as the clouds shifted position over the sun. Just an optical illusion.

  She heard the reassuring propeller beat then, looked up and spotted the helicopter on the horizon. “They’re coming,” she said. “They’re almost here. And look, the rest of the cavalry is right behind them.” She saw jeeps and other vehicles bounding closer, too. “You’re going to be okay, Alex. You have to be okay.”

  “Must be Mick Flyte and the government men,” Garrett observed.

  Ben and Wes and Selene just kept on chanting.

  Alex wasn’t sure what had happened. His head felt odd, and he had no idea where he was or how long he’d been there. His throat hurt. His chest hurt. In fact, as feeling returned very gradually to his body, he realized that pretty much everything hurt. The only part of him that felt good was his hand, because it was held in a warm, firm, blessedly familiar one.

  He pried his eyes open but saw only light and shadow, out-of-focus shapes with blurred edges.

  “Alex?”

  “Mel?” He squinted at her until she came clearer. But before he could focus, another image came to mind, very clearly. The one of Curnyn holding a gun to her head. His heart almost stopped when he saw that image, and he sat up fast, reaching toward her. “Let her go, you son of a—”

  He froze in racking pain, one hand going automatically to his chest as Mel leaped to her feet and grabbed his shoulders.

  “It’s okay, Alex. It’s okay. Curnyn’s behind bars, and I’m fine. Just take it easy. Easy now, everything’s all right.”

  There were bandages on his chest where his hand was. He realized it dully as Mel eased him back down onto the pillows. She pulled the blanket up around him and fussed over the tubes that were taped to his arm.

  “Are you…were you hurt?” he asked her. He tried to see her, to look her over to determine for himself that she was unharmed, but his vision was still unfocused, and he couldn’t be sure.

  “No, dummy. You were. That would be why you’re the one lying in the hospital bed and I’m the one sitting vigil, instead of the other way around.” She shook her head. “Some cloak-and-dagger type you are.”

  He almost laughed, but it turned into a grimace. Still, the pain began to ebb as he relaxed in the bed. His vision cleared, and he looked at her, standing over him. She was all cleaned up, her hair freshly washed and lustrous. She was wearing jeans and a cute little T-shirt that hugged her in all the right places. The front read Fear This. He smiled a little, and then he noticed that her blue eyes were moist, and more than a little bit droopy. “You’ve really been sitting vigil?”

  “Sitting vigil, standing vigil, pacing vigil. You probably didn’t know it was possible to pace vigil, but I’ve proven it over the last several hours.”

  “You didn’t sleep,” he said, stating the obvious.

  She only shook her head. “Look, j
ust so we’re clear on this, I’m assuming that you wouldn’t have slept if it had been me with the bullet in my chest and the surgery and the recovery and all that other nonsense. I mean, you would have paced vigil, too. Right?”

  “Surgery, huh?” he asked.

  “I’m sorry, Alex. I didn’t think… Yeah, they had to do surgery on you, to get the bullet out.” She reached down to the floor beside her and picked up a small glass jar with a misshapen gray lump of lead inside it, and shook it around so it jangled. “But I made them save it for you. See? Isn’t it cool?”

  He looked at the bullet, felt a jab in his chest at the sight of it, and nodded. “Very cool. But, uh, a little off the subject.” He took the jar from her and set it beside him on the bed. “You wanted to know if I’d have done the same for you.”

  “Would you?”

  Her eyes held his like magnets, and he knew just what she was asking. “Yeah,” he said. “I’d have paced a hole in the floor.”

  Her lips pulled at the corners just a little. “I thought so. But…you know, I wasn’t sure.”

  “No? Well, that’s easily explained. I mean, you said you loved me, and I never said it back.”

  She blinked. “I didn’t—I never—”

  “Sure you did. Remember, when we were standing in front of the firing squad, and I said, ‘go over the wall,’ and you said, ‘I love you, too’?”

  She pressed her lips tightly. “I kinda thought you might have forgotten about that.”

  “Well, I didn’t. And I’m sorry I didn’t give the appropriate response to such a heartfelt declaration, but things got a little crazy just then.”

  She shrugged. “Well, actually, you did.”

  “I did what?”

  “Give the appropriate response,” she said.

  Alex frowned at her. “I did?”

  She shrugged with one shoulder. “Sure you did. I mean, you muttered it enough times when you were coming out of the anesthesia. Most of the nurses on the staff of the hospital heard it several times over. They told me, of course, but they wouldn’t let me in there to hear it for myself.”

  He had the oddest feeling. He’d had it for a long time now. A sense of completeness. As if he’d found some part of himself that had been missing. “No one’s pointing any guns at us right now, Mel. And you’re not drugged, and I’m not under the influence of anesthesia. And you know what?”

  She met his eyes. “What?”

  “I still love you.”

  Her smile grew wider. “I know.”

  “Well?” He took her wrist and pulled her closer to him. “Don’t you think you ought to say something back to me?”

  “Oh. You mean you don’t already know?”

  He shook his head from side to side.

  “But I thought I made pretty clear to you, in the cell, after I drank the water.”

  “I’d like to hear it from you when you’re straight and sober, if you don’t mind.”

  “I said it again, when we were about to be shot.”

  “I’d like to hear you say it without a gun to your head.”

  She smiled fully, every bit of mischief he loved so much twinkling in her eyes. “I love you, Alex.” She said it, and then she leaned in closer, pressing her lips gently to his. “I love you way more than I think I should.”

  “Why?”

  She sighed, stroking his hair and looking into his eyes. “Well, look at us. I can’t come to you in your world, Alex. I can’t. I don’t fit in, and even if I could, I wouldn’t want to. I don’t like it there.”

  “I wouldn’t want you to like it there, Mel, and I sure as hell wouldn’t want you to fit into that world. That would mean changing, and I don’t want anything about you to change. I love you for who you are. That’s the woman I want to be with.”

  “Really?” She smiled a little. “Are you sure?”

  “How can you ask me that at this point? We’re meant for each other, Mel, haven’t you figured that out yet?”

  She nodded. “I can’t imagine any other man being good enough.”

  “I don’t care where we call home,” he told her. “Just as long as we’re there together. And…you don’t mind traveling when we have to.”

  “I don’t mind traveling. But why would we have to?”

  “Well, you know, it’s essential in the private security business. If you’re going to be my partner, you’ll have to—”

  “I’m gonna be your partner?”

  He licked his lips. “In every possible way I can think of.” He said it with a smile, and then he kissed her again. “There’s no one I trust more, no one more capable, and to be honest, I’ve never met anyone who seems to thrive on being shot at quite as much as you do.”

  She rubbed her cheek across his face. “Yeah, well, at least I know enough to get out from in front of the bullets.”

  He laughed, and it hurt. “I promise I’ll try to do better.”

  She lowered her eyes. “You got shot trying to protect me.”

  “I just wanted to keep you healthy for the wedding.”

  She lifted her eyebrows.

  “I know, it’s a pretty pathetic proposal. To tell you the truth, I wanted to wait.”

  “For what?”

  “Oh, to do it right. I was gonna rent a limo to take you to a fancy place for dinner.”

  “Or borrow a horse and ride down to the swimming hole for a picnic.”

  He smiled. “I was thinking of hiding a great big ring in the bottom of your glass of champagne.”

  “Or maybe in the bottom of a beer bottle.” She snuggled closer. “Take note, I did not object to the ‘big ring’ part.”

  “Then I was gonna get down on one knee,” he told her, “and take your hand and tell you that I couldn’t live without you, and ask you to be my wife.”

  “So why did you decide to do it here instead?”

  He shrugged. “I can’t wait to hear the answer, I guess. I need to know if I’m going to get to spend the rest of my life in bliss with the only woman I’ve ever loved.”

  “You are,” she told him. She bent down and kissed him, aggressively, the way she’d kissed him in the cell that night. And when she lifted her head away, he was breathing hard. “You lucky son of a gun,” she whispered.

  “Hey, baby?”

  “Hmm?”

  “Get the doc in here, would you?”

  “Why? Are you okay?”

  “Yeah. I just, uh, have a few questions about how soon I can return to…normal activity.”

  Her smile was slow and knowing as she leaned down to kiss him again.

  ISBN: 978-1-4592-0116-3

  SECRETS AND LIES

  Copyright © 2002 by Margaret Benson

  All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the written permission of the editorial office, Silhouette Books, 300 East 42nd Street, New York, NY 10017 U.S.A.

  All characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all incidents are pure invention.

  This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

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  Table of Contents

  Are you telling me my countrys in trouble? Mel asked.

 

 

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