“Taylor, stop it.” Gently, Dianna brushed the tears off his face. “It isn’t your fault. It happened. I was careless. Accidents happen. We’re in a dangerous situation where anything can and will go wrong. It could have just as easily been you who went over the side of the cliff.”
“But—”
“I know what can happen,” she said on a short breath. “No antibiotics. A dirty wound. Flies. Heat. Humidity. Infection. You don’t have to try to conceal it all from me.
I know all the reasons you’re worried. We’re not in the best setting for something to heal. I could lose my leg. I could die. We could both die.”
“I won’t let anything else happen to you. I swear.”
Her brows furrowed. “You can’t beat death—”
“It isn’t going to happen, Dianna. I won’t let it. I promise.”
“Don’t make promises you can’t keep.” A faint smile settled on her lips. “We aren’t going to be rescued. We’re in the wrong part of Australia. I was so stupid. I should have known something was wrong with the instruments.”
“No, baby, how could you know? What could you have done if you’d known? You’d still have been flying blind.”
“No. I could have used the horizon for—”
“Don’t,” Taylor snapped. “Don’t try to second guess what you could have done. You don’t know. You might have overshot. Then we’d have crashed into the ocean. A thousand different scenarios are possible, none good. The fact is if we had to crash, we probably went down in the best part of Australia, at least in this part of the country. There are far worse areas.”
“Don’t you see?” she said, a hopeless cry in her voice. “We’re too far north. We’ll never be rescued. We’ll die here.” Dianna moaned, burying her face against his shirt. “Why couldn’t the fall have just killed me? It would have been over quickly. I can handle instant death. I can’t take this, Taylor. I can’t. I hurt everywhere. You don’t know what it feels like. The agony—”
“I don’t, huh?”
Dianna scrubbed away the tears with a dirty hand, smearing mud and blood down her cheeks even worse than they are already were. She sniffed pitifully. “Oh, God, I forgot how badly you were hurt in the car crash. But I’m not you, Taylor. I’m not strong. I can’t do this.”
“Yes, you can. You are strong. I don’t know any woman who’s stronger, except maybe my sister. You two are so much alike, both fighters. So fight, damn it! We’ll do this together.”
“I don’t wanna fight. It hurts. I hurt.”
Taylor started up the steep incline. “You’re going to live. I won’t let you give up and die on me. For the sake of our baby, you’re going to fight with everything you’ve got inside you until there’s nothing left. I’d never fuck a weak-livered female and knock her up, just so she can give me a son puny as a kitten. I chose you for the mother of my kid because you’re a survivor. So you’ll damn well honor me and live!”
Dianna blinked. “Baby? What baby?”
“The one I exhausted myself putting in you.”
She gaped at him slack jawed. Her mouth worked several seconds before she finally managed to speak. “Honor you? It’s no honor that you chose me to be your flippin’ incubator.”
“Incubator? Yeah, that’s a perfect term for you. ‘Bout all you’re good for, too. All this freakin’ whinin’ ‘bout how you can’t make it. You’re weak, Dianna, a wailer. If I’d realized sooner, do you think I’d want you for the mother of my children?”
“Children? You want more than one?” She sounded as if the thought of having his kids was fabulous.
Hell, it was fabulous. Impossible. But fabulous. Taylor took another step, careful not to jiggle her. “You did say you missed several of your pills. Didn’t you?” He couldn’t look at her. He knew if he did—
“Yes…bu–but…you told me not to worry about it, that you’re sterile.”
“I lied.”
“No. You’re lying now.”
“Am I? Why do you believe I’d tell the truth about being sterile? Don’t you know it’s a line every man uses on a woman to keep from wearing a rubber? A man likes it meat-to-meat, baby. I’m no different. I liked being inside you naked. You felt tight and snug, like warm, thick liquid melting around my cock. Hell, I went off like a skyrocket on the Fourth of July. A man…well he doesn’t give a rip if he knocks up a woman. I don’t give a rip if I knocked your ass up. It isn’t my problem, baby.”
Dianna hammered his shoulder. “Bastard! Put me down. Now.”
“Can you stand on one leg and pull off your clothes?”
“What?”
“We’re in the cave.”
Dianna looked around, her eyes wide, her expression dumbfounded. “How? When?”
“While you were working up your righteous indignation, I got us up that fucking slope. Come on. Let’s get you out of these muddy clothes and bathe. I need to judge the damage to your leg.”
Dianna blinked. “You lied abo–about…”
Taylor lifted a brow. “Why would I lie? I can’t think of anything I’d like better than to see you big with my baby, unless it’s screwing you again. You up to it, huh? A little one-on-one with the hired help? Hell, I’ll even pat you on the ass when it’s over and say it was good.”
Her green eyes blazed. “You took a deliberate chance at making me pregnant?”
“Chances. Plural. We did the dirty deed several times, Princess. You fell for the old lie, hook, line, and sinker. Talk about a sucker. Pretty high odds, I knocked you up. Come on, don’t look so aggrieved. Having a baby in you oughta give you something to live for. You were willing to take the risks. You’re as much to blame as I am. And don’t think I give a shit if you’re pumped up.”
“I think what I’ve known all along,” she said in a wobbly voice. “You’re a lousy, rotten horse turd.”
“And don’t you forget it.”
“As if I ever could.”
“Come on, sweetheart, you think you’re the first woman a man ever used that scam on? Undress. You’re getting in that pool if I have to throw you in.”
“I’ll undress. Don’t think you’ll ever get the chance to touch me again.”
“What makes you think I want to?”
Dianna burst into tears. “Leave me alone,” she cried. “Get out of here and leave me alone.”
“Isn’t happening, babe.” He tore her shirt over her head and tossed it aside. “Now let’s get you outta these jeans and see what the real damage is. And Dianna?”
She eyed him with total disgust, sniffing.
“When we get outta here, get on with your life. If by chance you find you really are pregnant…don’t call me. I’m not interested.”
Chapter Twelve
Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers.
~Alfred Lord Tennyson
Annandale, Virginia
February 17, Tuesday
One hour and thirty-eight minutes after the assassination…
Duel braced for what he knew was going to take a monumental effort to rise and give chase after the knife-wielding female who’d just taken great pleasure in stabbing him. He knew she’d enjoyed it, because damn it, he’d heard the relish in her voice when she said, “Take that!”
Swear to God, it was like she swatted nothing more than a pesky fly, except she did it with a deadly knife. Here he lay on the kitchen floor, her fucking kitchen floor, teeth clenched, and sweating like a runaway horse. Unfortunately, his blood seeped onto the tile beneath his shoulder, too. “Fuck!”
He battled the urge to simply close his eyes and give in to the overwhelming darkness threatening to bury him. The pain in his chest throbbed like the exposed nerve of a tooth. Sonofabitch, it was going to hurt like a mother. But he had no time to lie here and coddle himself, think about his actions or the lousy mistake he’d just made.
The insane woman had dashed out the back door like a wild mustang. She must have an incredible set of lungs, because he swore she sounded like a freaki
ng banshee shrieking in the wind.
Every dog, every meddlesome neighbor in the immediate area was bound to poke a curious nose out the door and snoop or call the cops. The last thing Duel wanted was a patrol car to come by. He didn’t have time for lengthy explanations or a trip to the local police station or hospital. Not only that, the more people who knew he was involved in getting the little secretary to safety, the higher the risks, and the higher the chances of failure.
“Cowboy up,” he ordered in a strangled voice, knowing full well that’s exactly what his brother Jace would say if it was him.
‘Get up, Duel, you gonna let some sissy female womp your ass?’ That’s what Wild would say. And Dianna would simply grin and tease him about being a wimp and letting a woman kick his butt.
Duel sucked in a deep breath, closed his fingers around the end of the knife handle and slowly pulled the frigging blade out of his shoulder. “Ahhhhh! Jesus Christ.”
White-hot pain ripped through the upper most part of his shoulder and spread across his chest like a trail of burning coals. Damn, if it wasn’t like being stabbed all over again, he thought. He didn’t know which was worse, the torture of the cold steel going in, or coming out of his shoulder. Warm blood saturated his shirt. Hell, maybe he should have left the knife in, but God it’d felt like the jagged points of hoarfrost jammed inside the muscle.
Tears tracked the corners of his eyes. Hell, he’d taken bullets, and yes, they made a man feel like hurling his guts, but there was something about the cold edge of a steel blade that left ice coagulating the blood. Compared to getting shot, the pain was poles apart.
Duel tried to push up from the floor, but fell back, panting. “Uhhhhh!”
First chance, he was wringing the little secretary’s uncooperative, murderous neck! Swear to God he’d make the witch eat that damn knife, right before he strangled her with his bare hands.
Sweat poured down his face in rivulets. Raspy breaths seared his lungs. He was pretty sure he was going to lose his dinner. Damn, maybe getting knifed was no different than getting shot after all.
What he wouldn’t give for a straight shot of whiskey. Hell, two shots. And make it tequila. This was far worse than the time he took the bullet to the groin in Iraq. Then he’d merely thought he was going to die. Now he wished he would. “Shit!” The handle felt wet and slick with his blood. His nerveless fingers slipped and he lost his grip. In spite of his sudden jerky movement to catch it, the knife clattered to the stone-tiled floor. Slowly, he turned on his uninjured side and lay there in a fetal ball. “Please, God, just let me die. I swear I’m ready.”
No time to lie here moaning and praying. The killer secretary was escaping. Hell, he ought to just let her go and get herself killed, but Sam would finish killing him if he did. She hated losing members of her personal staff.
Clenching his teeth, Duel pushed his way to his feet. There was no choice. He had to give chase. Hell’s bells, all he wanted was to lie back down, close his eyes, tune out the world, forget everyone’s problems and not move for at least twenty-four hours.
It wasn’t happening. Not now. The way he felt, he thought he might never get a decent night’s rest again. When he chose to join the CIA, he’d made the world and its troubles his problem. There was no way to lay it all down. It wasn’t easy to walk away, not when there were so many things wrong in the world.
Pain ripped through his body. A wave of dizziness washed over him. He swayed unsteadily. Damn, she’d got him, but good. He was not in the mood for this crap. Too old. Too tired. The witch of a secretary picked the wrong man, the wrong night to be a rebel. When he got his hands on her, she’d pay, all right. She’d wish she’d never been born.
If he hadn’t been so utterly exhausted, she’d never have got the drop on him the way she did, never have gotten within a mile of him with a fucking butcher knife. A butcher knife! How wrong was that? Couldn’t she have chosen something a little more exotic to stab him with? Like a–a—sword?
Or a dagger?
At least make him look good. But an ordinary butcher knife? How crude was that? The woman was obviously evil. What was it with females and knives? For Christ’s sake, what the hell was wrong with a little snub-nosed gun? A little gun fit perfectly in those stupid, worthless clutch purses a woman insisted on carrying to formal affairs, just so it matched their evening gown.
What the hell else were those bits of nothing purses good for, except to conceal a small weapon? Good grief, he was absolutely mindless. His thoughts rambled as if he was in a feverish dream, but oh, yeah, nothing was changing his mind. He preferred a bullet over getting stabbed any day of the week and that was his final thought on the subject.
Duel stumbled his way through the back door. He paused, leaned against the outside facing and sucked in a lungful of the icy air to help clear his foggy head. Getting stabbed was just plain careless, but that’s what happened when an operative was too exhausted to do his job, or too emotionally wrecked to concentrate on it.
For sure, he was living proof of what happened under those type of circumstances—a knife thrust in him by a five-foot six or so female, skinny as a rail from what he’d felt, with not an ounce of muscle—made him look like a fool—worse, it made him feel like one too.
Friggin’ butcher knife! Breathe, Duel. Breathe. You’re not going to let a scrawny little filly and a puny knife wound beat your ass. Jace will never let you live it down.
Maybe the fresh air helped him get his wits about him, because he suddenly realized he couldn’t just stand there and let her escape. He narrowed his eyes and searched the darkness. There she was—halfway across the yard and headed to a back gate. “Hell, no,” he muttered. She wasn’t losing him that easy. “Stop!”
Sam ordered him to get her out of here, and that was exactly what he was going to do. Telling himself to get a move on, Duel kicked his body into first gear. He took off across the surprisingly lengthy back yard, ignoring how weak and wobbly his legs felt, and cursing with every breath.
Dodging a set of wrought-iron lawn furniture that should have been put away for winter, he caught the toe of his right shoe on some kind of yard ornament buried in the snow and tripped like a clumsy fool. He managed to keep from plunging headfirst, but stumbled several feet. Then he slipped on a patch of ice, skated unsteadily for several more feet, before sliding to a sudden stop. He felt like a one-legged stork attempting to regain its balance against impossible odds.
God, he hated this weather. Sleet peppered his face, along with crystal snowflakes that poured from the night sky. His chest hurt. His shoulder burned like the pits of hell. But he wasn’t giving up. His target was close now. Duel didn’t know why, but she limped—thank God. It surely had slowed her down enough for him to catch her. “Wait,” he called. “I’m not going to hurt you!”
The demon woman paid no heed, but continued to hobble across the yard toward the gate. Duel swore and dragged up what reserve energy he had left. He burst across the remaining few yards separating them and tackled her. He hit her behind the back of her knees dragging her to the cold, icy earth. They hit the frozen, snow covered ground with blended oomphs of pain. Twisting hard, Duel took the full brunt of the fall. Winded, he rolled with her until he sat astraddle of her.
“Oooh,” she yelled amidst a tangled clump of wriggling arms and legs. “Let me go, you big oaf!” She slapped at him, clawing at his face.
“Damn it!” Duel banded her arms together and gripped her wrists tightly. Still she wriggled beneath him like a fish on a hook. “Stop it! Stop fighting me. Good grief, you’re a handful!”
His first priority was her safety. He needed to get her out of here. Explanations could wait until later. But Duel knew instantly he’d miscalculated her will to escape—yeah, as if her stabbing him wasn’t his first clue.
But he hadn’t counted on her still having so much fight in her, which again only proved how brain dead he truly was. Never underestimate your opponent. Hell, any woman who’d go toe-to-toe
with an unknown assailant would dare just about anything.
She’d proved that already, so duh, she was a fighter.
She bucked wildly, thrashing beneath his hips.
“Jesus Christ, lady. Stop wiggling like that. I’m trying to help you.”
“Let-me-go!” She butted his mouth with her head.
Duel winced. The coppery flavor of blood coated his tongue and lips. “Sonofabitch, you busted my lip,” he said incredulously. “Damn hellion!”
“Give me the chance, and I’ll bust your balls!”
“Nice.” He narrowed his eyes, temper on edge. “You’re in a pretty precarious position right now, lady. You’ve used up your quota of my patience. I’d be very careful if I were you.”
“Like I care?” She ignored his warning, and tried head butting him again.
One thing was certain—it wasn’t a little frail old lady he was riding here. This woman put up a good battle, as good as any wild filly. “Christ-a-mighty, woman, I ought to just shoot you and be done with it.”
* * * *
Shoot her? Flayme froze beneath the solid weight of her attacker. Oh, God. So, this was the man who’d shot at her? Tried to kill her? Yeah, she guessed he was about the same size, weight, body hard as rock, lean and tough. To threaten her like this, he must have a gun with him. If only she could get one hand free and—“Not going to hurt me, my ass,” she uttered. “Get off me, you big lug!” Flayme was pretty certain the man had every intention of killing her—just not here. No, he’d take her out on some lonely stretch of road and put a bullet in her brain, dump her poor body, and most likely she wouldn’t be found until spring. All that’d be left were bones, and they’d be scattered to the four winds. She watched enough Forensic Files to know how things worked or didn’t work.
Playing For Keeps (Montana Men) Page 14
