“You suck at my job, just so you know. You’re supposed to be the calm voice of reason.”
“Fuck that. Where’s Tony?”
“He jumped out of a moving vehicle and took off into the airport after Ludka, but he probably won’t catch him since he can barely even stand up straight.”
“Crazy bastard. And what are you doing?”
“Looking for a parking spot.”
“Of course you are,” he shouted. “Because the only thing worse than Tony getting whacked in an airport would be getting a fucking parking ticket!”
The sounds of a scuffle came over the line, and then Marge was there, thank God. “Sorry, Charlotte. I’m old and slow and he keeps beating me to the headset. What do you need?”
“Tell Rogers Ludka is heading his way. Tony’s behind him, but he might not catch up to him before he gets there.”
“I, umm…put out an official-looking bulletin about a possible plot to hijack corporate business jets from three key airports—yours being one, of course—and Rogers says they’ve got the Bombardier and a few others locked down pretty tight.”
“Good thinking. Make sure the Greek authorities know the guy with the scary beat-up face and ratty leather jacket who’s running around holding his ribs with one hand and a gun in the other is the good guy, okay?”
“You know,” Marge said, “I used to think you guys had the coolest jobs. Now that I’ve been on the inside, so to speak, I think you’re all just freakin’ crazy.”
“Absolutely. Now, pull up a floor plan of this damn place, would you?”
—
Tony gritted his teeth and moved through the airport, trying not to lose sight of Konrad Ludka. He was also trying not to attract attention, but it wasn’t easy when you looked like a face double for the final scenes of a Rocky movie.
The way he saw it, there was good news and bad news. Good—he was able to keep Ludka in his line of sight at almost all times. Bad—there were far too many people around for him to risk shooting him. Good—Ludka wasn’t looking around or paying too much attention to what was around him, namely Tony. Bad—he was clearly moving toward an objective, and Tony knew that objective was the Bombardier.
If Ludka got there first and managed to get the drop on Rogers—which he might very well do, since Rogers wasn’t really a field agent—it would be a simple matter for Ludka to put a gun to his head and have a private ride to pretty much anywhere he wanted to go.
Or he might just find a good hiding place and wait for Tony and Charlotte to show up, shoot them and not even give the plane a second look.
The most likely scenario, as far as he was concerned, was Ludka reaching into his little bag of favorite tricks and planting some kind of explosive device somewhere on the plane. If not for Tony’s own phone having been forgotten for a while in Ludka’s pocket, he could have come and gone without them even knowing about it.
Tony was starting to tire, and he cursed himself for getting out of the car. He’d only done it for one reason—to keep both Charlotte and the Bombardier out of the equation.
They were getting close to the exit to the private hangars—too close—and Tony’s hand tightened around the S&W. Assuming Ludka didn’t look around and spot him before then, Tony was going to take the shot as soon as they cleared the tarmac.
Suddenly, a luggage cart came from nowhere, being pushed by a tall woman in a baggy coat and floppy hat. She wasn’t paying attention to where she was going and crashed into Ludka, knocking him off his feet.
Tony surged forward, his gun clearing his holster.
“Oh my goodness,” declared the worst Southern American accent he’d ever heard. “Are you all right? I declare I wasn’t watching where I was going.”
Ludka was scrambling to his feet, but Tony’s wayward Miss Scarlet tried to help him up and ended up kneeing him in the balls.
“Oh my! I do reckon I’m just making it worse.”
The good news was Ludka was down. The bad news was that Charlotte had managed to make a spectacle of the situation and he had an audience.
“Let me help, sir,” Tony said loudly. He bent over and jammed the S&W against the man’s kidney. “Get up and let me help you walk to a quiet place.”
“Screw you,” the red-faced Ludka hissed. “You won’t shoot me in front of all these people.”
Tony sighed. If Charlotte had let them keep walking, he’d be shooting Konrad Ludka right about now. He motioned with his head, trying to get Charlotte to move to a better location—as in one where Ludka couldn’t see her, because he had to make a move.
Standing straight up, he let the small crowd see the S&W. There were some gasps, and most of the women fled, dragging any children behind them.
“Konrad Ludka, you’re under arrest for the murder of Hector Anetakis,” Tony announced in a loud voice as he hauled the German to his feet.
“Screw you,” Ludka spat, and went for his gun.
The gun cleared his coat. He raised it, taking a sloppy aim. The crowd screamed. Charlotte shouted Tony’s name.
Tony pulled the trigger. One shot, into the heart. Ludka crumpled to the ground.
Tony watched him for a long moment. He usually went for the head shot, but he’d tried to minimize the trauma for the crowd. It didn’t matter this time, because the end result was the same. Konrad Ludka was dead.
He looked for Charlotte and found her standing behind him, talking rapidly into her comm. “…and get me Christopher Savakis as soon as you can,” she was saying.
Tony took a deep breath and lowered his weapon. It was over.
He could hear the pounding boots of the security running in his direction. A siren was approaching outside. The paperwork was going to be a bitch.
But all he could think about was Charlotte. He glanced her way again, but she only turned away to continue updating HQ on what had happened.
As officers surrounded him and Ludka’s body, he wondered just how much was really over. Just the job, or he and Charlotte.
Chapter Eleven
New York City
“Tell me the part about Miz Scarlett and the luggage rack again.”
Charlotte laughed and shook her head. “Tony’s already told that story a dozen times. You must have memorized it by now.”
Alex pointed at the nurse Grace was conferring with in the corner of his hospital room. “She just got here, and I know she’d want to hear it.”
“It’s Tony’s fault. If he’d told me he had a plan before he jumped out of the car, I wouldn’t have come up with my own.”
Tony, who was looking decidedly uncomfortable in a metal folding chair, shook his head. “I’m not taking the blame for that. I may not be Gallagher, but even I wouldn’t formulate a plan around a fake accent that atrocious, darlin’.”
“It worked, didn’t it?”
“More or less.” His words were offered grudgingly, but he smiled at her to take the edge off.
Charlotte was sitting on the edge of Alex’s bed, letting Tony and Gallagher take the two visitors’ chairs. While Tony was directly in her line of sight and he was smiling now, he’d barely looked at her since they landed at LaGuardia and took a car directly to the hospital.
The hospital staff would be throwing them out in another ten minutes or so, and it would be the crossroads for her and Tony, Charlotte thought. He’d either go home with her, or he’d head back to Texas. And no matter how often she searched his face, she had absolutely no clue which way he was leaning.
“Why the southern accent?” Gallagher wanted to know.
Charlotte crossed her arms. She was never going to live this down. “It sounded dramatic at the time.”
“It sounded bad at the time is what it sounded like,” Tony said. Then he hauled himself to his feet and slapped Alex on one blanket-clad shin. “Well, boss, as much I love sitting on hard metal chairs listening to your machines beep, I’m going to head out. I’ll catch up with you later.”
“Where you heading?” Gallagher a
sked before Charlotte could get the question formed.
“I’ve got a plane to catch and horses to ride. I’ve got two months R&R, and I’m taking them, effective…” He looked at his watch. “Now.”
So he was leaving, then. She saw the quick, sympathetic glance Grace sent her way and looked down at her hands. She’d tried to prepare herself for this moment, but her heart was breaking and she guessed it showed.
Tony paused on his way to the door. “You want to walk me down, Miss Scarlett, or do you have some turnips to harvest?”
Laughter followed them out the door, but she didn’t join in. They rode the elevator to the ground floor in silence, and when they stepped outside, she was surprised to see a car at the curb with Marge at the wheel.
“I would have made your travel arrangements if you’d asked,” she said, a little more sharply than she’d intended.
“I know.” He took her hand and laced his fingers through hers. “I’m sorry I botched things up,” he said.
“It wasn’t your fault things got botched. When you do what we do for a living, botching happens.”
He shook his head. “I mean about us. I’m sorry I was an ass about what happened. It’s just some shit I have to work through, and that’s wrong because it should be about you, not me.”
“You’re wrong. It should be about us.”
Tony cupped her chin with his free hand. “I need some distance from this—from you, from everything that’s happened—so I can think and sort through it all.”
“I still think you think too much,” she said, managing a weak smile.
“Please don’t give up on me, darlin’.”
“Never,” she whispered.
He kissed her—a hard, fast kiss that ended too soon—and then he opened the car door and climbed in. Charlotte gave Marge a quick wave before turning back to the hospital entrance.
She wouldn’t beg him to stay or plead with him to call her. But she wouldn’t watch him leave.
Six weeks later
“I’m being punished, aren’t I?” Carmen Olivera demanded. “Why else would I be rummaging through a Republican’s underwear drawer.”
Charlotte smiled, adjusting her headset. “Because that’s where her Democrat co-star said she saw him put the tape. According to the tracking beacon, the family is leaving the restaurant now. ETA—sixteen minutes.”
“Why do people even make sex tapes?” Carmen grumbled.
“So they can relive the moment, I guess.” She, on the other hand, didn’t need a tape to remember every second of Tony making love to her. The image of him smiling down at her played through her mind so often, she had no need for a video souvenir.
A phone call would be nice, though. Even before the trip to Greece, she’d never gone so long without talking to him. She missed the sound of his voice.
“Got it,” Carmen reported, dragging Charlotte back to the job at hand. “Although I think they should release it to the public. Cinematic proof bipartisanship feels good. And how exactly did this become a matter of national security anyway?”
“Blackmail. I guess our horny and devious Republican is using the tape to pressure our horny and gullible Democrat into being some kind of congressional Mata Hari. There are some key Homeland Security votes coming up.”
“I’m out.” She heard Carmen close her car door and fire up the engine.
“Excellent.” Charlotte noted the time in the file. “Seal it up in the mailer and drop it in the pick-up box—two blocks east of your current location.”
“Confirmed drop,” Carmen called in, only a few minutes later. “Mission finito. So, has he called yet?”
“No.” The little glow of satisfaction Charlotte got after each job faded in a hurry.
“That rat bastard,” the other woman said, but without much heat. Charlotte understood—Tony and Carmen’s friendship predated the Devlin Group. Carmen walked a fine line loyalty-wise.
“You should let me hook you up,” the other woman continued. “You need to put him behind you and go have some fun.”
Please don’t give up on me, darlin’.
“He’ll call,” Charlotte said quietly. Quietly enough she heard the door close in the other room.
Only a few people had the coded access necessary to get up to the penthouse and open the door—she was expecting it was Gallagher. He had to pick up a few things for the upcoming Canadian job and then he was heading to New Hampshire to spend a few days with the Rossis. The physical therapy was making Alex cranky and Grace had threatened to widow herself if Gallagher didn’t go distract him.
“I’ve got to disconnect,” she told Carmen. “Gallagher’s here for some documents for the job you two are going on. I’ll send the data to your handheld in a little while.”
They disconnected the call, then Charlotte grabbed a file folder and stepped out into the living room.
Tony Casavetti was not who she expected to see standing in her apartment.
He was leaning against the closed door looking healthy and tan, a battered cowboy hat in his hands.
“I love you, Charlotte.”
The folder slipped from her grasp, highly classified documents scattering across the floor. She tried to summon coherent words, but the rush of emotions tangled her thoughts.
He cleared his throat, twirling the hat in his hands. “I, uh…have a lot to say, but I wasn’t sure how much I could get out, so I figured I’d say that first.”
She started across the room, desperate for him to hold her. “That’s the only thing I need to hear, Tony.”
He shook his head. “No, there’s more. I’ve spent the better part of my life—the military, the police force, the Devlin Group—willing to sacrifice myself for others, for people I don’t even know. That’s just who and what I am. But I’ve never had anybody willing to make that sacrifice for me.
“I’ve never been offered that kind of gift, Charlotte. Nobody’s ever sacrificed anything for me. I’ve never had anybody love me. And then you…you gave me everything, and I didn’t know how to accept it. I’d never felt anything like it and it knocked me on my ass. I didn’t know what to do.”
She reached him, and he took her hand in his. Only when his face blurred did she realize she was crying. “Holding me would have been a better choice than running off to Texas.”
“I figured that out about five seconds after my plane took off.”
She rested her cheek on his chest, and rather than let go of her hand he dropped the hat and pressed that hand to her back. “But it took you six weeks to come back?”
“I figured since I’d already been a total dumbass and left you, I may as well totally get my head on straight before I came back. I told you once I didn’t know who the real Tony Casavetti is. I do now. I’m just what you see. A good ol’ boy who lies and shoots people for a living and who loves you somethin’ fierce, darlin’.”
Charlotte tilted her head so she could look up into his face. “Lying, shooting good ol’ boys who love me something fierce just happen to be my type.”
He let go of her hand to pull a small box from his pocket. The fine sheen of sweat on his forehead and the slight tremble in his hand thrilled Charlotte to her toes. The man faced death on a regular basis without flinching and was scared shitless of this moment.
Pushing her back a couple of steps, he took her hand again and got down on one knee. “I know you’ve had a lot of expensive jewelry and stuff in your life, and you don’t give a damn about that kind of thing. So…”
He flipped the box open one-handed and Charlotte’s breath caught in her throat. It was beautiful. The polished stone was carved into the shape of a teardrop, and was a cloudy, almost opaque pink. It was held in a platinum setting on an unadorned band. So simple, and yet so incredibly just right for her.
“It’s rose quartz,” Tony told her. “It’s an odd choice for a ring, I know. But it’s supposed to be about loving and healing and…the lady in the gem shop told me about it, and it just seemed right.”
“It’s perfect.” She was crying in earnest now. “I love it. I love you.”
“Will you marry me, Charlotte Rhames?” He slid the ring onto her finger. It fit perfectly.
“Yes!” She pulled him to his feet and he pulled her into his arms. When he kissed the top of her head, she smiled and hiccuped.
“You just made me the happiest man in the world, darlin’. There’s no way I could have faced the rest of my life without you.”
“You don’t have to. I’m not going anywhere.”
Tony tucked her head under his chin and hugged her close. “It’s a damn good day.”
About the Author
Shannon Stacey married her Prince Charming in 1993 and is the proud mother of a future Nobel Prize for Science-winning bookworm and an adrenaline junkie with a flair for drama. She lives in New England, where her two favorite activities are trying to stay warm and writing stories of happily ever after.
You can contact Shannon or sign up for her newsletter through her website: www.shannonstacey.com
Look for these titles by Shannon Stacey
Now Available:
Forever Again
72 Hours
Talons: Kiss Me Deadly
In the Spirit
Coming Soon:
Taming Eliza Jane
When all hell breaks loose, there’s only one way to run.
Burning Reflections
© 2006 Rachel Carrington
Now Available in print and ebook.
Morgan Hennessy is a high-powered, North Carolina attorney who’s spent the past five years trying to forget her failed marriage to someone she’d once considered to be her best friend. Just when she thinks she’s gotten things together, the attentions of a colleague turn obsessive. Alive after one vicious attack, Morgan knows only one person can protect her now. Her ex-husband. The one man who still owns her heart.
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