Carly Bishop

by Reckless Lover(Lit)

Her protests wouldn't come. Her thinking was out of sync with her actions and she didn't turn her face away when she had the infinitesimal chance.

  He didn't hesitate. He wouldn't. He wasn't the-sensitive sort. He Wouldn't ask her permission. He didn't care whether he had her consent or not.

  He just began greasing her lips impatiently, like a man, intent only on slat bering on the stuff to be done with it, but suddenly, he slowed. Eden uttered a low, witless sigh. Her eyes were drawn to his weary face, to his eyes. Lids lowered, his eyes followed the course of his fingertip.

  He might have been ministering to a whiny child. This. was nothing more than lip balm. Nothing half as intimate a~ he had forced in the small airport terminal. But he was still touching her lips when their eyes met and the kindness became something more, something very nearly dangerous, triggering a bolt of awareness between them.

  His breath locked in his throat. Eden pulled back.

  He exhaled' harshly stood and scooped her up in his arms as easily as if she had been a small child. "Haggerty says there are first-aid supplies in the head."

  Carrying her, he strode the length of the passenger compartment to a lavatory three time~ the s'~e of an ordinary aircraft washroom and put her down so that she was sitting on the countertop, nearly at eye-to-eye level with him.

  He pulled a paper cup from the dispenser beside the soap, filled it with water and dropped a few ibuprofen tablets from the medicine cabinet into her shaking hand. "Here. Take these."

  She didn't think he was surly again so much as exhausted. She managed to take a drink without spilling the cup and swallowed the pills by herself while he splashed his face and scrubbed his hands.

  He found a first-aid kit. No sterile gloves, but there were a set of tweezers, gauze, peroxide, rubbing alcohol. "Can you get out of the sweatshirt yourself?"

  Eden nodded. It was clear to her now that she did need help. That she couldn't even take care of dry and cracked lips, much less a bullet wound. As soon as she could~ she would find a way to escape Christian Tierney, but this was not the time or place--with a bullet lodged in her flesh--for bravado or false modesty.

  She held her right arm as still as if it were broken, and reached with her left hand beneath the sweatshirt. Easing the right sleeve past her elbow, down the length of her forearm and off her hand, she lifted the sweatshirt off over her head.

  Her pink-ribboned bus tier was soaked in her blood from the satin shoulder strap to the soft material covering the upper curve of her right breast.

  She turned sharply away, closed her eyes tight and bit her lip but she couldn't keep from crying out, The pain was daunting, but seeing the damage, seeing her blood-soaked clothing was even worse.

  Chris swore. Moving between her legs, he cupped her nape with his hand, drawing her head toward him to steady it against his and close off the sight. He held her, his jaw pressed to her cheek. He had seen far worse, but he also knew what it was to see the reality of one's own flesh raw aged and bloody.

  Hot tears slid down her cheek and off his jaw. "Shh, Eden," he murmured over and over again, stroking her hair. "Breathe. That's a girl. You're all right. It looks worse than it is."

  He felt silent sobs rack her body. He knew how close she was to hysteria, how badly she needed to get all the pent-up rage out of her system. He knew exactly how alone and traumatized, battered and vulnerable she felt. He suspected her tears had far more to do with being outraged at being unable to control anything happening around her2

  The same sort of rage was a part of him, too, Or had been: Only this was Eden Kelley, a woman whose life he'd saved, but whom he didn't know and had no business holding.

  He couldn't let her go. He held her,. absorbing her anguished, silent cries.

  "Oh, God, Eden. Don't cry." He whispered soft reassurances to her and stroked her back. "You're all right. You suveived the bastard again." He brought his lips to her cheek and kissed her there--not for any reason but to comfort her, but it didn't stay that simple.

  She turned her face toward his kiss like a flower strains toward the sun, seeking things so basic to survival as warmth and water and air.

  He understood. She needed more. Something stronger, deeper, human. Eden needed his kiss as a matter of survival.

  He was no less needy.

  He kissed her again and again and, closing his eyes, inhaled the scent of her and dragged his lips over the soft, sweet texture of her cheek to her lips.

  Eden moaned and clung to the back of his plaid flannel shirt with her left hand and took his kisses like balm to her ragged soul. The fullness of his lips pressed to hers, the warmth, the moisture, the wallop of conflicting emotions-desire and fear and anger and need--took her aback like a sudden squall. Like lightning crackling in the air, making it come alive, making her come alive, making her forget the pain and anxiety.

  After a while, her tears stopped and she pulled back. Resting her forehead against his, she felt confused and uncertain. The pain intruded again, and the real world. The dull, constant hum of the aircraft engines. The stale air. Her heartbeat slowed. Her tears dried.

  She couldn't remember a time in all her life when a man had given her a thimble's'worth of comfort. Or when any man had kissed her and eased the soul-deep weariness inside her and then aroused' her too. This man, Catherine Tierney's widower, this dangerous, reckless, helbbent, vengeful man had done both.

  Her cheek still tingled where his whiskers had scraped her skin. She didn't know how to behave or what to say; Or even what to believe was the truth about Christian Tierney.

  He didn't leave her wondering long. He cleared his throat and stepped back. The expression in his eyes hardened. Her crying jag was over, and so was his show of compassion.

  Christian Tierney had his own agenda. The only thing that mattered to him was that she hang together long enough to fulfill whatever role was needed to further his intentions. His kiss, the hint of desire--even hers--were nothing but illusions:

  She must have lost too much blood for her brain to function at all. Or else the constant, stabbing l~ain had short-circuited all her thought processes.

  She swallowed and angled her head to look up at him again. His eyes were bloodshot and haunted and empty at once. He was beyond tired, beyond reaching. He still owed her an explanation. "I want to know what's happened. Why I have to-be relocated again."

  He dragged his g~e off her, plugged the drain and ran the small sink full. Ripping open a couple of packages of gauze, he soaked a couple of squares in the hot, soapy water. "This will hurt, Eden. No matter what I do, it will hurt. Are you ready?"

  She clasped her hands in her lap and turned away, avoiding looking at the wound. "Is Broussard out of prison?" she persisted.

  "Yeah." His jaw tightened. "They sprang him early last week. He served a grand total of seventeen months." He handed her a cloth towel he found in the cabinet below the sink. "Here, hold the towel. This will he messy. I don't want to spoil the lest of your... top."

  He didn't know what to call her bus tier She felt embarrassed, caught in the not-quite-innocent pleasure of wearing such a garment. But she had never intended to be seen like this. By him. She nodded, clutched the towel to 'her breast and gritted her teeth, preparing for the worst. He brought the soapy gauze to her shoulder and held her hair aside with his other hand. When he touched the steaming hot, soapy cloth to her shoulder, it was all Eden could do to stay still and not flinch.

  She caught her lower lip between her teeth and endured. It took him several moments of wiping and rinsing and drawing fresh hot water to clean away the mess.

  He peered closely at his work. "It's a very small wound, Edenl The nylon on your pack strap must have slowed the bullet and your bone did the rest. It must have nicked the artery just below the bone to bleed so much, but you were very lucky."

  Tears made tiny stabbing pains at the back of her eyes again. "I don't understand any of this. How could this happen?" ~

  He shook his head, working steadily along.
"A lot of big, bad coincidences."

  She swallowed hard. Once, when she was in Sunday school with probably her third foster family, the teacher told them nothing happened except by God's will. There were no accidents. God sent tests sometimes. He must test the children's faith, else how would He know if they believed in Him?

  She'd tried very hard to believe. After a while, it was easier to think there. must not be any God at all. She focused on the door hinge behind Tierney's back. "Do you believe that?" she asked softly. "In coincidence, I mean?"

  "No."

  "Me, neither." She shivered. "How didBroussard know where to find me, then?" '

  He tore open more gauze and set to work again. "Did you ever contact anyone you knew as Eden Kelley?"

  "Oh, that's good." Her voice trembled. "Blame the victim."

  "I'm not blaming you, Eden," he grated. "But the facts are simple. In the huge majority of cases, when a relocation fails, it's because the witness couldn't take the isolation anymore. It's a fact, not an accusation."

  "Well, I've had a lot more practice getting jerked around than most people."

  His eyes met hers. "I know."

  She lowered her gaze. She didn't~want his pity. She already knew the extent of his concern. If he knew how many times she had been taken from one foster home to another, then he must know how experienced she was at shutting off her needs, "I didn't contact anyone. Ever. Period."

  "You never sent a postcard or"

  "No."

  "Made a phone call or"

  "No."

  "Faxed anything?"

  "Never!" Why didn't he believe her? "I knew the rules and I followed them! I didn't even call Dennis Shulander, not once, and I was told that~I'd be safe."

  "No one, Eden? Are you absolutely sure?"

  "I faxed things to New York all the time--to Judith's agent, but"

  ~ "Who was that?" he interrupted sharply, dumping a gauze near the sink.

  "Britta Nielsen. But she only knew me as Lisa Hollister. She's a literary agent, Tierney, not some pipeline to Winston Broussard! She's a little old lady--a shark, but hardly a likely candidate." The towel at her breast was soaked. She folded it once. The warm water was beginning to feel good, but inside, she felt threatened. Uneasy. Where was he going with this? "What are you getting at?"

  "Sheila Jacques, Eden." He straightened, stretching his shoulders, tilting his head from one side to the other, watching her.

  "Sheila? What has she got to do with anything?" "You tell me."

  "Sheila is my best friend. Her parents were the closest thing I had to a family--but I haven't communicated with her since... well, since months before the trial. Did you think I called her?"

  "Did you?"

  "Of course not! Are you implying she had anything to do with this?"

  Opening the bottle of peroxide, he ignored her question. "How did you communicate vqith her before the trial?"

  "David Tafoya let me write her a letter. I understood that he was going to have it hand delivered. It was just... just a goodbye note, really. I wasn't even allowed to say that I was in protective custody." Eden hesitated. "I don't understand. Are you saying Sheila knew something? Anything? That ~he's somehow involved in this?"

  "I don't know." He broke off and stood back, massaging his eyes with his thumb and forefinger. He stopped, crammed his hand into a pocket and blinked. "What I am saying, Eden, is that Sheila Jacques has become Winston Broussard's mistress."

  Chapter Six

  "Oh, my God, no."

  Her cry took Chris apart more efficiently than the sight of her ravaged, creamy flesh. He couldn't begin to guess how he knew, but it wasn't the possibility that Sheila Jacques had betrayed her that made Eden cry out. It was dread for her friend, pure and simple.

  She didn't doubt for a' heartbeat the cunning of Winston Broussard to daT~le and win over to his side her -closest friend. The malignant charisma would be disr pensed like candy to a naive and innocent child.

  Her dark brown hair, thick as a sable pelt, hung straight and true despite having flown wildly on his cycle framing her face, 'making her seem even more pale, more delicate than her blood loss could warrant. Her wide gray eyes glittered with tears, like droplets condensing on a steamy mirror.

  He couldn't take his eyes' off her face. She dragged in a deep breath. "How do you know?"

  He forced his attention back to her mangled flesh, but that only intensified his awareness of her. He could not deal with her wound and not see in his peripheral vision the swell of her breasts beneath what seemed to him a frankly erotic piece of clothing.

  He registered this purely masculine reaction as the truth, but counted it reckless and irresponsible even to have noticed. All the same, closing in on the bullet wound, catching the nuances of her dismay, he found himself wanting to protect Eden Kelley.

  To spare her.

  To cushion the emotional blows.

  She had already been treated to more death and devastation up close and personal than anyone should ever be. But the truth was an ugly check on reality. She had to understand that.

  He told her how Sheila Jacques had resigned from her inner-city teaching position, about the forty-thousand-dollar silver sports car. He told her that the lease on Jacques's tiny garret apartment in an old house in the Back Bay had expired and ~not been renewed. He described the number and duration of visits Jacques made to the country-club prison where Broussard had served his time.

  He described the way Eden's closest friend had dropped out of sight as only someone with money enough to burn can do, and then he drew the inevitable conclusion. "Your friend has gone over to the enemy, Eden. There's no way of getting around it."

  He thought she did understand. She sat quietly, the delicate features of her pretty, heart-shaped face pinched, the dark lashes around her gray eyes damp with tears she blinked back.

  She gritted her teeth when he touched a soapy swab near the bullet wound. "I don't doubt that what you said is true, but it doesn't mean what you think. You're wrong if you believe Sheila would betray me."

  He wadded up a spent gauze and flicked it at the trash, hoping to shake off his growing aggravation with her along

  with it. "This is not something open to any innocent interpretation,

  "You don't know her."

  "I don't have to." He wanted to shake her. How could she sit here with a bullet riddling her flesh and still believe goodness and mercy were following her around? "Every living, breathing human being has a price. Sheila Jacques is no exception."

  She swallowed. Their eyes clashed. The memory of their kisses wasn't far off. Her chin went up, unwittingly exposing more of her delicate neck. "What." s yours, Tierney? Who else has to die for you to feel Catherine's death is properly avenged? "

  He went deadly still. Shock coursed through him. He flashed on the moment of Catherine's 'death. Eden's biting response shouldn't have surprised him, but it did. He answered her question. Only Winston Broussard. "

  "Then why aren't you tracing him? Tracking him down instead of me?" she cried. "Why drag me into this when you know Broussard will come after me?"

  Chris didn't even flinch. It was exactly because Broussard would come after her that Chris had taken her first. The truth no longer pricked his conscience. He knew the man. He knew Broussard would keep coming after her no matter where she tried to hide. He'd keep sending his hired guns until all the failed attempts on Eden's life would goad him into coming after her himself.

  When he did, Chris intended to be there. To see to it that Broussard paid in the most primitive and graphic terms for the lives he had destroyed~

  For the hundreds or even thousands of nameless victims of the weapons Winston Broussard trafficked in.

  For Catherine.

  For the tiny, unformed life inside her whose very existence cleaved Chris's heart in two.

  He couldn't guarantee what Eden would do, or ever hope to get the least cooperation from her, if he revealed any part' of this to her. He i
gnored her "why me" questions and returned to the subject of Sheila Jacques's betrayal.

  "Use your head, Eden," he warned in a flat voice. "People betray other people all the time." He knew from extensive personal experience that this was true. He paused long enough to look straight into her rainy gray eyes. "Even you."

  Her lips clamped shut, he thought, to fight off the quivering. He knew it was a low, mean blow. She had betrayed Broussard, but' she clearly counted it a different thing than real friends betraying each other.

  "There's no way, Tierney, that Sheila Jacques would do or say anything that would hurt me."

  "Oh, God, Eden! Grow~ up, will you?" The guilelessness in her blew him away: How she could have been exposed to such ruthlessness, such ev//, and still have faith in anyone was beyond him. "Winston Broussard con tami-hated everything in your life. You think he's somehow sparing Sheila Jacques? You think he didn't pick her out with every intention of rubbing your nose in it?"