The Defiant Hero

by Suzanne Brockmann

  “I’m only fifteen!”

  Silence.

  He stared at her, a flurry of emotions crossing his expressive face. “My God,” he breathed. “Please tell me this is a joke?”

  Eve shook her head. No joke.

  “You’re fifteen . . . years old?” His voice broke.

  She nodded, unable to look into his eyes, where shock was turning into anger.

  Ralph started to laugh but it was strained and humorless. “Well, that took care of my . . . overwhelming, uncurbable passion. Nothing like facing charges as a pedophile to douse any romantic urges. Jesus, Eve, you’re fifteen? How could you . . . ? Why didn’t you . . . ? You knew that I thought . . . What in God’s name were you thinking?”

  She stuck with honesty. “That you would leave if you knew the truth. I know you thought I was older and—”

  “Damn right I would have left! I’m a teacher! I’m supposed to be teaching children, not— Oh, my God!” He stood up and started to pace, an explosion of energy, unable to sit still a moment longer. “I should have known. How the bloody hell could I not have known?”

  He turned to stare at her, angry tears in his eyes.

  “How could you be fifteen? You don’t look fifteen. And yet . . .” He smacked himself in the head. “Jesu Christe, I should have known.”

  “I’m so sorry. I know you wanted to . . . But, I need some time—a few days—to . . .”

  “You don’t need a few days. You need a few years! Oh, my God, I’ve ruined you. You’re a child and I took your trust and—”

  “I’m so sorry. Please . . .” Don’t go.

  But he was putting on his jacket, his movements jerky. “I’ll call my father’s solicitor in the morning, make arrangements for an annulment. Maybe with his help, we can avoid a scandal. Here I was, thinking I was keeping your reputation from being shredded, while in fact, all along, you were ruining me.”

  “No.” Her tears had started again. “Wait. Ralph, no one knows how old I really am. My own stepmother thinks I’m seventeen or eighteen. We just won’t tell anyone. And . . . and . . . You said we could take things slowly tonight.” Eve prayed that this could still have a happy ending, rather than the train wreck they seemed careening toward. “Why can’t we just take it really slowly? And maybe this fall when you get leave, I’ll be ready to . . . We’ll be able to . . .”

  “You want me to continue this charade?” He was incredulous. “Can’t you just hear it? ‘Going back to England, eh, Grayson?’ ‘Indeed, Major, I’m going home for the weekend to see if my fifteen-year-old wife’s old enough yet to consummate my marriage.’ God damn you.” He started for the door. “The solicitor will send you the paperwork necessary. There’ll be a generous settlement, of course.”

  “I won’t sign it!” she cried. “I don’t want your stupid money! I love you! And you love me!” She clung to the box of his letters like a life buoy.

  He turned back and his face was hard, his eyes like that of a stranger. “I fell in love with someone honest. Someone who never would have used such deceit and trickery the way you did. The person I fell in love with apparently doesn’t exist.”

  Eve gazed at him, stricken. There was nothing she could say, no argument that could challenge that.

  “Sign the papers when they come, Eve,” he said quietly. “My solicitor will do his best to keep this entire incident hushed up. For both our sakes. And with the settlement money, you’ll be able to get out of town and go back to California.”

  Incident. Just like that, he’d reduced the months of magic that they’d shared to one cold, impersonal word.

  “I will regret meeting you for the rest of my life,” he whispered.

  As Eve watched, Ralph went out the door without looking back.

  Fifteen

  SAM DIDN’T KNOW what in hell was going on.

  Traffic had been a pain in the ass, and it had taken them just short of forever to find a space in a parking garage near the hospital. Alyssa had lightened her load by tossing her fanny pack into the trunk, and they’d headed for the hospital at a dead run.

  They took the information desk by storm—Alyssa more tense than he’d ever seen her before.

  And when a quick phone call to the maternity ward revealed that Tyra had given birth to a little girl just thirty minutes earlier, and that both mother and child were doing remarkably well, Alyssa Locke, the coldhearted ice bitch, actually started to cry.

  Sam was stunned.

  He was completely speechless.

  It wasn’t as if she’d started sobbing, tears pouring down her cheeks as she gasped for air. No, didn’t it figure? Alyssa Locke cried like a man.

  She cried the way WildCard Karmody had cried when he’d gotten that Dear John email from Adele Zakashansky. The way Nils had cried when Meg had gone AWOL. Her eyes filled with tears that she couldn’t blink back and she turned her head away, as if she hoped Sam wouldn’t see.

  So, like with WildCard and Nils, he pretended not to see.

  And, upstairs, he pretended not to watch and listen as Alyssa hugged her sister and the sister’s husband, a tall black man who gave Sam a handshake, a candy cigar, and a tired smile as they came into the private hospital room.

  The baby’s name was Lanora, and for some reason, that got the tears started again—both from Alyssa and her sister.

  But it wasn’t until they’d left the maternity ward that Alyssa had a total meltdown.

  Of course, being Alyssa Locke, she managed to do it quietly, and with dignity.

  One second she was walking beside Sam, heading for the elevators. And the next, she just stopped walking.

  She sat down on a waiting area sofa, covered her face with her hands, bent over as if she had a stomachache, and silently wept.

  Sam wanted to do something. With any other woman, he would’ve been right there, next to her, putting his arms around her, giving her a shoulder to cry on, whispering words of comfort into her ear.

  But Alyssa wasn’t just any woman.

  So instead he sat down across the room, far enough away to give her privacy. Close enough so that she could keep an eye on him.

  It was what he would have done if Mike Muldoon or Frank O’Leary had started to cry.

  Clearly there was something else going on here besides a sister giving birth to a healthy baby girl.

  But chances were that he was never going to find out.

  Nils didn’t move. He didn’t change his breathing, didn’t open his eyes, but he was instantly awake.

  Someone was touching him—reaching into the front pocket of his pants.

  Friend or foe?

  His brain was fuzzy from exhaustion, so it took him a few seconds longer than usual to remember where he was, what he was doing there, and who the hell could be touching him.

  He was outside—he could feel the sun on his face, smell the recently cut grass. He was lying on his back, on the ground and . . .

  Meg Moore. Razeen. Kidnapped daughter. Meg Moore. Hostages in the K-stani men’s room. Meg.

  He was in Georgia, taking a desperately needed break from the hypnotizing drive south on the relentless sameness of Route 95.

  And that was Meg’s hand inching farther into his pocket. He could smell her hair, feel the warmth of her body as she leaned over him.

  She was going for the car keys.

  God damn it.

  Hadn’t anything he’d said to her gotten through?

  Apparently not.

  Nils kept his eyes shut and his breathing steady as he felt her hesitate. The pockets of the coveralls were deeper than she’d thought.

  Maybe she wouldn’t do it. Maybe she’d give up because she really didn’t want to ditch him here, in backwoods Georgia. Maybe she’d give up because she wanted him with her, needed him, even though she couldn’t yet admit it to herself.

  She reached farther. And froze.

  You bet, sweetheart. That’s exactly what you think it is.

  One of the biggest problems with going
commando under a pair of loose coveralls was that nothing lined neatly up.

  “Oh, God,” she breathed.

  But she kept going.

  Nils managed to keep his eyes closed and to keep breathing. God bless Master Chief Vandegrift for drilling Nils’s BUD/S class relentlessly when it came to waking up silently and feigning sleep or lifelessness. Although, as much as he now tried, his body was having a decidedly nonlifeless reaction to her hand against his inner thigh.

  He tried to focus on the fact that she had her hand in his pants for all the wrong reasons. She was going to take the keys. And then she was going to stand up, get in the car, and drive away without him.

  Or maybe she wouldn’t. Maybe after she got the keys, she wouldn’t be able to do it. Nils stayed silent and still, wanting to wait and see what she would do.

  He knew he could stop her. At any time. Even after she got the keys and got to her feet.

  He knew he could outrun her to the car, even starting from a completely prone position like this. He could overpower her easily, take her little handgun pretty damn easily. But he didn’t want to do it that way. He didn’t want to take her handgun.

  He wanted her to give it to him.

  If she gave it to him, there would be no mistakes. No one would be at risk for being accidentally shot. If she gave it to him, she’d be voluntarily turning herself in. Any chance that she had of making right all her wrongs depended on that.

  Painstakingly slowly, she pulled the keys from his pocket.

  Please don’t do this, Meg.

  “I’m sorry, John,” she whispered, almost as if she’d heard him. “I don’t have a choice.”

  It seemed like the right time to open his eyes. “There’s always a choice.”

  Startled, she tried to jerk her hand free, but she was trapped by his pocket. She lost her balance and fell forward, directly on top of him, her arm pinned.

  “Ouch, ouch, ouch!” Her wrist was twisted, and he reached between them to free her hand from his pants, deftly removing the keys from her fingers as he did so and stashing them in his left pocket.

  “You’re awake,” she accused him, struggling to sit back up.

  But he had both arms around her now, and he wouldn’t let her go. “Actually,” he said, “I’m not sure about that. For all I know, this could be a dream. One of the better ones I’ve had lately, if you want to know the truth.”

  She’d stopped struggling, but she was breathing hard as she gazed down at him. Her face was maybe two inches away from his. Maybe less. “You can’t come with me,” she said fiercely. “You can’t.”

  “Although if this was a dream, you wouldn’t snarl at me, you’d kiss me.”

  Meg closed her eyes in exasperation. “John—”

  He supposed he took advantage of the fact that her eyes were closed and her lips were parted. But frankly, he wasn’t thinking of much beyond what he wanted. He just covered her mouth with his and kissed her.

  He could taste her surprise, mixed with sweet coffee and Meg.

  After nearly three years, he was finally kissing Meg again.

  She made a soft sound in the back of her throat that might’ve been despair, but then she kissed him back so hungrily, he was sure he had to be dreaming.

  She was fire in his arms, her breasts dizzyingly soft against his chest.

  Nils opened his mouth to her, letting her kiss him ferociously, drinking in her passion, straining to pull her closer. He couldn’t get enough of her, even at a moment like this, when he wasn’t quite sure where he ended and she began. He’d never been able to get enough of her—he doubted he ever would.

  Her hands were in his hair, touching his face, his neck, and then his chest as she reached between them and unfastened the top buttons of his coveralls. And then, dear Lord, she was straddling him.

  She kissed him again, even more deeply, as she pressed herself against him, as her hands continued to work his buttons free.

  No, strike that. As one hand continued to work his buttons free. The other was dipping into his left pants pocket.

  Shit. Nils opened his eyes to a sky that was a miraculous shade of blue just as she broke away from him, car keys in her right hand, gun in her left. “Don’t move!”

  “Ah, Christ.” Nils let his head bounce back against the ground.

  She was scuttling away from him, still on her butt. She put the keys into her pocket and held the gun with both hands. “Just . . . don’t move!” Her voice shook.

  “I’m not moving,” he said. But then he did move. He sat up, fast, to hide the tent pole effect that being completely aroused created with the baggy coveralls. He felt his face heat from embarrassment—when was the last time he’d actually blushed? He didn’t know which was worse—being taken in by her again, actually believing that she’d wanted to kiss him that way, or having her witness such an obvious and crude proof of his desire.

  “Stop,” she ordered. “Don’t come any closer!”

  “What are you going to do, Meg, shoot me?” He would have preferred her shooting him over running that sexual con game. At least he knew how to deal with the pain from a bullet wound.

  “I’m going to get into the car, and I’m going to go find Amy.”

  She’d do anything to save Amy—she even would have slept with the guard at the hotel if she’d had to. She’d said that herself. The guard, or anyone, including Nils, apparently. If she’d had to. God damn her.

  And god damn himself, too. This was his fault for kissing her. What did he think? She’d willingly take a time-out to neck by the side of the road when every cell in her body was screaming for her to go rescue her daughter?

  Nils shouldn’t have kissed her, shouldn’t have taken advantage of her that way. And he couldn’t fully blame her for turning around and taking advantage of him. He’d been in her shoes plenty of times—on a dangerous op and in a position where he would have done and said anything to reach his single-minded goal.

  “I’m sorry,” he told her, his anger snuffed, his voice quiet. “I shouldn’t have kissed you, but I wanted to and . . . I’m sorry.”

  That got through to her far better than shouting would have. As Nils watched, Meg’s eyes filled with tears. “I’m sorry, too.”

  “Not sorry enough to take me with you, though,” he said with an attempt at a smile. “I’m afraid I’m not sorry enough either—not enough to let you leave me behind.”

  “Why are you doing this?” she asked.

  If she had to ask that, she didn’t have the slightest clue about anything at all. He wanted to cry, too. How could she not know?

  But she’d said she didn’t know him, couldn’t tell when he was being honest and when he was hiding behind some . . . what was it she’d said? Some well-conceived fiction.

  Nils looked at her. Even sitting there, weapon clutched in both hands, she looked vulnerable and completely out of her league. A stranger in a strange land. Would she even be able to recognize if he answered her with the bald truth?

  “You need me,” he said. That was the easy part, so he said it again. “I’m doing this because you need me.” The hard part was more difficult to spit out. But he did it. “Almost as much as I need you.”

  She was surprised. He wasn’t sure she believed him, but at least he’d succeeded in surprising her.

  “You don’t need me.” She spoke with such certainty.

  “Oh,” he said, “right. I don’t know how I feel—whereas you do.”

  “No,” she said. “Nope. No way. I would never presume to know anything about the way you feel.” She laughed in exasperation. “Not even when your tongue’s in my mouth and your hand’s down my pants. Who knows what you could be thinking.”

  “I’m thinking that I need you.” He still had to work to say the words, but it wasn’t as hard as the first time.

  “Why would you just suddenly say that to me now? We don’t see each other for nearly three years, and suddenly you need me?”

  “It’s not sudden,” Nil
s said as evenly as he could. “I wasn’t in a position where I could tell you before. You weren’t free—”

  “Dammit, I’m not free now!”

  He just watched her, waiting for her to explain.

  “I’m ready to die,” she said more quietly. “To save Amy. There’s no question, John, if it’s her or me, it’s me I’ll sacrifice. But I can’t—I won’t—let you die, too. And the only way I can be sure that won’t happen is for you to stay here, now. Please. Let me leave without you.”

  Her calm acceptance of her fate made his chest and throat feel tight. So naturally, he made a joke. “If you don’t want me to die, threatening to shoot me seems a little counterintuitive.”

  She didn’t laugh.

  They might’ve sat there, staring at each other, at an impasse for much longer, but the sound of a car approaching made Nils lift his head.

  Shit. “Police car at four o’clock.”

  “What?” She didn’t understand him.

  “Back and to your right,” he quickly explained. “We’ve got a visitor and it’s a cop.”

  Once Meg understood, she made the handgun disappear, fast, turning to peer worriedly up the street at the approaching police vehicle.

  The cop was local, male, and riding alone.

  Come on, keep driving, Billy Bob. Everything’s fine here. Just a man and woman stopped to take a little rest, maybe have a picnic and a little roll in the grass by the side of the road.

  Nils watched the cop’s eyes, saw what the man saw. That the car was nice, a white sedan in good condition. The woman looked nice, too, but the man—Nils—wasn’t so fresh. He needed a shave. Looked like he needed a shower, too.

  The cop looked at him harder and Nils knew what he was thinking. That Nils had either just gotten off from work, or he was an escaped convict who’d stolen some coveralls from some garage a few miles up the road—maybe after killing everyone in the service station.

  The cop looked at Meg again, his eyes narrowing. On second glance, she definitely looked frightened—as if she might’ve been taken hostage by an escaped murderer.

  “Smile,” Nils hissed to Meg, but it was too late.

  The cop was young and full of himself, probably itching to throw his weight around. He wasn’t in any kind of hurry to get to the donut shop—if they even had a donut shop in Nowhere, Georgia. As Nils watched, he stopped his car and got out.