"You must have loved her very much."
He tilted his head and knuckled his eyes. "Are you going somewhere with this?"
"Yes." She remembered the shock on his wildly handsome face, the rank confusion, the horror of seeing his lovely, pregnant wife brutally murdered. In the few seconds it had taken to speed away from the scene of the violent assassination attempt, she had known such a brutal loss would deaden a man's heart forever.
"Where?" he prodded.
She scraped her hair back, to buy time, maybe. A few seconds to find a way to gay what she thought Catherine might say to him. "Have you thought whether Catherine would want this?"
He shook his head. "What Catherine wants hasn't been relevant for a long time. You don't get to guess what she would have wanted."
His remark felt personal, like blame, whether that's what he'd intended or not. "But you can guess," she said, her voice low, urgent. "Do you think she would have wanted you to throw your life away?"
His looked straight at her and his lips curved, but Eden would not have called it a smile. "Catherine would have expected it."
Eden swallowed. "You can't be serious."
He looked away, sighing heavily. "I was in love with her. She would expect me to die of a broken heart. Or maybe to throw myself off a cliff."
His mournful response shocked Eden to her marrow. "People say that," she protested, "but"
"But what?" he snapped, angry at her now. "But they don't mean it? They don't want to believe it will ever happen, but it would sure he one hell of a testimony to undying love?" He surged out of his chair and began to pace, rubbing the back of his neck in his agitation. He turned back to her, one hand cocked on 'his lean hip, the other pointing straight at her, his eyes shooting dagger like warnings. "Don't presume to tell me what Catherine would have wanted."
Eden felt shaky again, and trapped. Caged by his anger, by emotions she couldn't fathom. By a kind of love she would never know, a love so powerful that neither person could imagine going on without the other.
She couldn't let his anger control her, or silence her.
"Broussard is deadly, Mr. Tierney"
"Chris."
"Mr. Tierney," she ~'epeated, aware how very dangerous it would he to begin calling him by his first name. How the enforced intimacy of being his captive might begin to seem more rational and less a violation. "Listen'to me, please! Winston. Broussard has no conscience. He lives for the moment. His motto is loyalty, first, last and always, but he has no. allegiance to anything or anyone but himself. He's an animal!"
"Are you saying i can't win, Eden?" ~ Tierney mockedl smirking at her. He picked up his coat from where he'd left it near the bulkhead, and pulled a canteen from his coat pocket. "That even if I try, I'll-lose? That I will have thrown my life away and changed nothing?"
"Yes! That's exactly what I'm saying. Winston Broussard doesn't care whom he hurts or who gets killed." Why was this so hard? Because deep within, she knew that if Tierney could contemplate revenge, he was more like Broussard than she wanted to accept? Because his beautiful haze! eyes were already lifeless? "I'm saying you're not... not like him. You're not ruthless enough."
He opened the flask and brought the opening to his mouth, drained it, then wiped his mouth on his sleeve and tossed aside the empty container:
"You're wrong," he said grimly.
Eden felt the color drain from her face. She knew then how hopeless it was to think she could persuade him to abandon his intentions. To forget, if not to forgive.
Christian Tierney loved his wife, Catherine, beyond life itself, but she was gone. He had faced the dilemma of what to do. How to go on.
His answer was not the. go on at all, save to exact his revenge, which would cost him his life, but save him a life time without the woman he loved.
Eden fell silent.
He sat again across from her. "Look, Eden..." He started to say something she wasn't sure she wanted to hear at all, trYing perhaps to find some way of putting his in' teat ions into a better light, some way of justifying what he had set himself up to do, but he was interrupted by Haggerty calling back to him.
"Tierney. We've got trouble."
He looked once more at Eden, then rose wearily from the seat.
She sat forward, intending to get up, as well. She had to grit her teeth against the rush of pain and the stiffness taking l~old of her body. "Do you mind if I hear what kind-of trouble we're in?"
He fixed her with his stare. "I don't think that would be a verY good idea." ~
Chapter Seven
He meant, of course, that she shouldn't know where she was. That he didn't trust her not to run, or to try calling for help. He would have to chain her to the seat to keep her from following, and she didn't think he was prepared to do that--at least not here. Not in confines she couldn't escape in any case.
The stiffness almost leveled her, almost made her sink back to her seat. Her chin went up. "I have a right to know what's going on."
He stared at her a moment longer, for what seemed a small eternity, then shrugged and turned away toward the cockpit. Eden ~s~ivered, It was a puny victorY in a battle of wills she had no chance of winning. He could lock her in the lavatory if he chose, which meant that if he allowed her to listen to his conversation with the FBI pilot, it was because he figured she didn't stand a chance of escaping him anyway.
"You're wrong, Christian Tierney," she uttered fiercely, purposefully echoing his earlier harsh remark.
She pulled the coarse, scratchy blanket tighter about her shoulders and followed him.
She leaned against the hatch. Tierney occupied the co-pilot's seat and sat listening to the pilot, Haggerry.
"... i$ socked in with fog," Haggerty was saying~ "Instrument landings only. I could do that at Logan, but not at a private airstrip. To get out of the weather, I'd have to go south damn near to New Jersey."
"What's the alternative?"
Haggerry tilted his head. From Eden's perspective, she could see a bald spot on top of it. "Looks like there's a break in the fog bank between the Berkshires and the Catskills. Saugerties, maybe."
"You know of any place you can put down there?"
"A couple. Fancy-assed private estates."
Tierney shook his head. "I'd rather not have to deal with any hotdog private security forces."
"We're not exactly long on choices here," Haggerty cracked.
"Pick one, then~" Tierney said. "You can drop us and head for New Jersey."
Haggerry nodded. "It'll he better this way. I'll lie low, head up to Logan in the morning. Tell Tafoya I don't know where you disappeared to, only I really won't know."
Standing behind them, Eden battled a sudden dizzy spell. Glaring white spots appeared before her eyes. She shivered and focused on one of dozens of dials and indicators and switches at Haggerty's command. "How much longer?"
Haggerty glanced up at her and shot Tierney a look. "Twenty minutes, maybe. You all right?"
"Go back and sit down," Haggerry suggested kindly. "You'll have to buckle upin a minute anyway."
She nodded. "When you talk 'to David Tafoya"
"Eden, go sit down," Tierney interrupted. "Do you need help?"
She recognized the warning, but what could he do to her in front of this man who thought he was such a damned hero? Maybe if she could push him into manhandling her, the FBI pilot would take a hint. She angled her head so it would stop spinning. "No, thank you. I just want David Tafoya to know that he shouldn't stop looking for"
"Things will be taken ca~ of, Eden," Tierney soothed, rising easily from the copilot seat, turning to her in the cramped space too short to accommodate his height. His eyes shot warnings only a fool would defy. "David Ta-foya knows his job.. He won't stop looking until the shooter is apprehended."
"I'want him to know where I am," she shrilled, insistent, defying him to silence her, but it was all to no avail. The two of them exchanged glances.
"He will, miss," Haggerty said, taki
ng the same patronizing tone, meant to calm a female bordering on hysteria. "Just as soon as they catch the guy who tried to kill you."
The white spots glared again in her vision. She had to try one more time. "You don't understand"
"I think he does, Eden," Tierney said firmly, turning her from the cockpit. "You and I are going to have to reach an understanding, lady," he muttered beneath his breath. But as soon as he planted her back in her seat and got a good look fat her, worry creased his forehead. He sank to his haunches before her. "Eden, your eyes are glassy. Are you hot?".
"If I am, will you take me to a hospital?"
His jaw tightened. "You never give up, do you?"
"No." She shook her head slowly. "This is wrong, Tierney. Please. Let me go. Let Haggert~ call Tafoya."
He lowered his head for a moment, and for that few seconds, Eden prayed he was reconsidering. He wasn't.
t. arty I~rvnop
She knew that when he looked back up at her and his expression seemed to her carved from granite. "Buckle up. Do it now."
SHE FELT EVERY FOOT of the descent in her stomach. She felt the wheels grabbing on the tarmac through her feet and legs, all the way to her chest. She had begun to grow hot, but as Haggerty applied the brakes, she shivered. Her seat was positioned backward, facing the tail of the jet, and the shuddering sensations as her body was drawn back were dangerously disorienting. She had eaten nothing all day. Still her stomach heaved.
Tierney was out of his copilot position and looking out the windows long before the jet came to a halt The skies were a wintry gray though the trees on either side of the airstrip were a lush, rich green. Eden watched, feeling sick inside, while he shouldered both their packs and bent low to release her seat belt. He pulled her to her feet and eased her arms, the damaged shoulder first, into his heavy black leather coat.
Already opening the door, Haggerry lowered the steps. The two men looked at each other for a moment, as if reaffirming their agreement, then Tierney scooped her up into his arms. Angling her body feet first through the cabin door; he descended the stairs, then set her on her feet.
Haggerty followed long enough to gauge the remaining l~ngth of the airstrip, then shook hands with Tierney. "I didn't see them sending out the militia," he hollered over the idling jet engines. Eden thought he meant whoever owned the property.
Tierney's luck seemed to be holding. Holding her hair down, she cried, "Please, call Tafoya," but her voice was lost, and Haggerty, scrambling up the short flight of sl~ps, never turned back.
If Tierney heard her, he ignored it. "Come on, Eden. Let's go." He took hold of her left hand and began running toward the Chain-link fence separating the airstrip from a thick grove of trees. At the fence, he picked her up again and set her over the railing, then vaulted over it himself and took off running again, pulling her behind.
She heard the jet gaining momentum and risin~ into the air. They had no sooner cleared the fence and run several yards through the tangled undergrowth when a car screeched to a halt at the end of the airstrip where Hag-getty had just lifted off.
Tierney paused at the thick base of an old maple tree, not because he was winded, Eden thought Not for' her, either, but to see if they had been observed. The two men getting out of the dark-colored car only stared after the plane, one of them with binoculars. Clearly bent out of shape, gesturing angrily, they weren't talking nearly loud enough to be heard.
Tierney gave a curt, satisfied nod. "They didn't see us get out." Through the haze and the swath cut through the trees for the airstrip, Eden could just make out the heights of the Catskills. Tierney readjusted both their packs on his left shoulder. He took her hand again and lit out through the grove of trees in a direction opposite the mountains.
The thick canopy of branches and leaves blocked out most of the scant, gray daylight. After along time, maybe an hour, he let go of her and just led the way, beating a path through vines big around as her. thumb, and dense undergrowth that made her footing treacherous.
She caught the toe of her shoe on something, stumbled and fell. It wouldn't have been enough to keep her down if she'd had any energy stores to draw on. Or if she had wanted to go on.
She didn't. Not with Christian Tierney. She huddled close to a tree trunk, leaning sideways against it, and kept quiet. It took him may he a minute to circle back to her. "What are you doing?"
She scraped her hair back and met his angry hazel eyes with defiance. It would help if her vision wasn't messed up, if she didn't see two of him, or if the white spots would go away. "Resting... no, that's not... I'm not going to go on."
His jaw cocked to the side. He shook his head, then dropped to his haunches and let their packs fall to the ground from his shoulder. Taking her face in his hand, he ordered her to look at him, and then he swore softly.
Scoping things out around them, he listened a moment for any hint of pursuit. He sank down beside her. He sat a moment, knees drawn to his chest, arms resting on them, his head bent low. "We can risk a few minutes, Eden. No more."
"Maybe you didn't understand. I'm not going with you anymore."
He ignored her. Lifting his head, he flexed his broad shoulders, then scrubbed away at his eyes with both fists. The childlike gesture caught her terribly off guard.
She swallowed hard. It would he so much safer not to notice the child in the man. Not to see his exhaustion. "You can't go on like this much longer, either, Tierney. You're in almost as bad ash ape as I am."
"Yeah." He looked at her, smiling a little. That caught her off guard, too. "But we are going on."
She lowered her eyes, ignoring him.
He hauled his pack nearer and began digging through it. "I've got some bottled water in here. A tin of deviled ham."
A bird screeched and dive-bomhed near her after some unseen quarry. She shuddered. "Water, please. My mouth is so dry."
"Yeah, well, it comes with the territory. Fever. Thirst, In a couple more hours, without something to stop it, you're going to have one hell of an infection going." He broke out the water and twisted off the cap. "Here. A little at a time."
She drank in small sips, then gulps, while he opened the tin of ham. He scoop ex some out with his fingers and ate it, then tried to hand her the tin.
"No." She made a face. "It smells vile." She shrugged at his look. "Canned meats make me gag. I'm sure I had more to eat than that when I was growing up, but all I remember are canned tamales and little wee hies
"What I remember is ketchup on macaroni." He smiled. She liked the look of his lips curved upward that way, liked it so much she turned away. He scooped out the rest of the small can and stuffed the seasoned meat into his mouth. "Guess I'll have to break out the Oreos, huh?"
Her eyes darted greedily back to him. "Oreos?"
He nodded, sucking the remains of the deviled ham from his finger. "A handful, Eden. Then we have to beat it out of here. If those two guys back there reported a trespass, it won't he long before someone puts two and two together."
Please, God, she thought. Please let Tafoya figure it out. She avoided Tierney's eyes and said nothing, but took a few cookies from the crumpled package.
Her prayers must have been excruciatingly transparent. She knew without looking at him that he realized what her silence was about. Trembling, she risked meeting his eyes.
His smile, any trace that he had ever in his life smiled, was gone. Her heart began to pound. She felt the throb c:arty ~tsnop bing above her right breast--and only then remembered that all she had on beneath his coat was her silk jersey camisole and gauze taped down to protect the wound.
She flushed and pulled the edges of the coat together. He watched her trying belatedly to cover herself, when it was her transparent motives that most needed concealing. He closed up the bag of cookies.
"I'm not going to apologize for hoping someone can stop you, Mr. Tierney." "
"You'd better hope no one does, Eden, because if they do you're a dead woman." He crammed the cookies back i
nside his pack: "You needed water. Fine." He shouldered both packs, then sank down on his haunches again to be right in her face. "But don't push me. I'm only going to say this once, so listen up."
He jerked the collar of. his coat up on her shoulders. "You want to tell the United States Marshal Service to screw off, that's your right. If you want to put your life in David Tafoya's hands when this is all over, that's your business. But right now, I'm the only thing standing he-tween you and sudden death." He grabbed her wrist and shook her. "Broussard wins. It's over. Are you clear on that? Are you?"
"I'm very clear on that point," she snapped, fighting back her tears, "since you're the one baiting Broussard to come after me." She jerked' her wrist from his grasp, but she knew it was Only because he allowed it that she broke free.
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