The Bride Wore A Forty-Four

by Maggie Shayne

  The smile returned to his face. "I hadn't thought of that. Does that mean you're going to let me wait on you hand and foot while we're here?"

  She shook her head. "No. But I'll let you show me how to use some of those weapons in that nifty little closet over there."

  He tipped his head to one side. "You didn't have any trouble back at the uh...wedding."

  "If you asked me how I did what I did back there, I couldn't tell you. And I'd rather not rely on my faulty memory or gut instinct if it comes down to life or death."

  "Your gut instinct is flawless, Kira. Always has been. But yeah, I'll show you."

  "Good." She smiled. "Pick out something simple. I'll go check on our pot pies."

  He lowered his head, laughing softly.

  "What?" she asked, frowning. "Did I say something funny?"

  He met her eyes, his shining. "Pot pies. You always loved those things."

  "I did?"

  He reached out a hand to cup her nape, fingers brushing over her hair. "It's coming back to you, Kira. Little by little, it's all coming back."

  "I hope so," she said, and her voice came out soft. "I want to remember you, Michael."

  He started to lean closer to her, then stopped himself. Kira slid her hands over his shoulders and pulled him toward her, until his lips brushed hers. It was a light touch, but it lit a fire inside her. She linked her hands around his neck and pressed her mouth to his, felt him tremble, as he pulled her tighter to him.

  The rapid-fire beat of her heart grew louder—and when the windows blew out of the cabin, she realized it wasn't her heart at all, but gunfire. In the next heartbeat, she was pressed to the floor with Michael's body covering hers. "Stay down." He growled the words into her ear. "Dammit, how did they find us?"

  She couldn't speak, overwhelmed with the surge of adrenalin pumping through her body, itching to get up, to do something. "Duke. It had to be goddamn Duke. I left him alone in the car. He must have done something."

  "Stuck a tracking device on it, more than likely," Michael said. "Come on, but stay low." He rolled off her.

  On hands and knees, they made their way to the little hidden room. Michael opened its door, urged her inside ahead of him, then closed it again behind him. Only then did he get to his feet

  She heard him moving around as she crouched in the darkness. He never turned on a light not even a flashlight but she knew he was gathering weapons, ammunition. She jumped upright when she heard the cabin's front door crashing open, the sounds of heavy steps inside the house. Michael's hands closed on one of her arms, and he drew her body flush to his. "It's okay," he whispered, his lips touching her ear, moving with the words. "Just stay quiet. It's okay."

  She nodded against the side of his face, then felt him moving, sliding a belt over her head, and around one shoulder, then another on the other side, so the two crossed at her chest. She felt a familiar, reassuring weight at her hips, moved her hands to her sides to caress the smooth grips of handguns and wondered at the flood of confidence that rushed through her.

  Then Michael had her by the hand and led her toward the back of the room, where he knelt. And moments later, he was guiding her down a set of stairs in the floor. "Wait at the bottom," he told her.

  Easier said than done, she thought, when she couldn't even see where the bottom was. Still, she made her way down into inky blackness, and there she waited. Only seconds ticked by, before he joined her there. She had drawn one of the weapons, held it ready at her side, even though she didn't remember pulling it. And her eyes were turned upward toward the ceiling, where she could see nothing but could hear the sounds of men stomping through the house, searching for them.

  Michael slid an arm around her shoulders, started leading her forward, and she was surprised when they didn't run into a wall. "How are you doing?"

  "Pissed," she muttered. "I didn't get my pot pie."

  He squeezed her closer. "That's my girl."

  She wanted to be. The thought danced through her mind without her permission. "Where does this lead?"

  "Out," he said.

  "Well, hell, I assumed that much."

  "Comes out about a hundred yards from the house, pretty deep into the woods. The exit's camouflaged. There's no way they could have spotted it."

  "Like there was no way they could find us at the cabin?" She felt him tense, and quickly added, "I'm not blaming you for it Michael. Hell, it was my fault for leaving Duke alone in the car. I'm just saying...how do we know there's not a thug with an AK standing outside that entrance, ready to pop us when we come out?"

  "Because," he said. "They want us alive."

  "That's not exactly reassuring."

  "I know. Just stay behind me, and if anything happens, I'll hold 'em off and you make a run for it."

  The voice that answered wasn't hers—or at least, not the one she'd been thinking of as hers for the past six months. It said, "The hell I will."

  Chapter 9

  She held her breath as Michael stood at the top of another set of stairs. She saw a sliver of gray twilight as he pushed the trapdoor upward and peered out, then sucked in a sharp breath when the door opened wider. Michael moved through it, and she started up behind him, only to have the trapdoor close all at once.

  Frowning, she scooted up the steps, put her hands over her head, and shoved upward, only to meet resistance.

  Hell, was Michael standing on the door?

  "Well now, where the hell did you come from?" a man's voice said.

  Kira froze. It wasn't Michael's voice.

  "Like I'd tell you."

  There was a terrible sound, a grunt of pain. Anger surged in Kira, and she shoved harder at the trapdoor.

  "Don't!" Michael yelled. "I'll talk, just take it easy. I was out gathering firewood when I heard you guys shooting up the place. Decided it might be best to lay low till you left."

  "And where's the little woman?"

  "Relocated, for her protection. I couldn't tell you where if I wanted to, and that's the truth."

  Kira closed her eyes. Damn him, he was determined to protect her.

  "Bullshit," one of the men said. "You brought her here with you."

  "No," he said. "I didn't You really think I'd have stayed out here hiding if Kira were under fire at that cabin?"

  The men were quiet for a moment, seeming to mull that over.

  "He's right," one said at last "He'd have charged into the cross fire to get her out. It wouldn't be the first time."

  "Doesn't matter," Michael said. "She's no threat to you. She's got no memory, doesn't even know what this is all about."

  "Search the woods, just in case," one of the men said. "I'll take this one back to the boss, figure out how he wants to proceed."

  "I'm telling you, she's not here. You're wasting your time," Michael said.

  "If she is, we'll find her."

  "I wish she was lurking around here someplace. You can bet she'd have sense enough to lay low till you were long gone," he said. "She'd know she was my only chance. But as it is, I guess I'm screwed."

  Kira closed her eyes, heard the message he had meant for her to hear. She had to stay quiet stay safe, and rescue her husband from the grip of madmen.

  For more than an hour she crouched in the darkness, underground. Eventually, she couldn't bear it any longer. She had no way of knowing if Peter's thugs still lurked outside, but she had to move. It was too easy to imagine what they might be doing to Michael.

  She crept up the stairs and shoved at the trapdoor. It gave easily this time, and she peered out saw nothing, then reminded herself that Michael hadn't seen anything either before stepping into the open and being spotted. So she crept out on her belly, pushing the trapdoor up only as much as she had to. When she was clear of it, she lay still on the ground, one gun in her hand, and she listened with every part of her. Carefully, she lifted her head, looked at her surroundings.

  Darkness surrounded her. The only sounds were the occasional call of a nightbird, t
he songs of crickets, the whir of other insects buzzing past

  She pushed herself up, got to her feet, and glanced back at the trapdoor, then blinked because she couldn't see it. After a moment she realized it was completely camouflaged. It looked like a part of the forest floor, leaves, branches, grass actually growing from it The thing was invisible.

  She looked around, trying to get her bearings, and started in what she hoped was the direction of the cabin. Within a few yards, she saw soft yellow light gleaming in the distance. She moved closer, instinctively moving without making a sound, creeping from one tree to the next The light took form—it was coming from the cabin windows. And there were cars parked in front

  "They didn't take him away," she whispered. Then she wondered why they would bother. They had the perfect place here. Michael had told her himself, no one else knew about it. Not even the good guys.

  Hell. She really was on her own. She worked the action on the handgun, then stopped, realizing what she had just done. No one had shown her how. She just knew. Just like she knew she wasn't going to miss what she targeted.

  Just who the fuck do those assholes think they're dealing with?

  The voice in her head made her smile, just a little. There was something familiar and comforting about it. About knowing it was her voice.

  She crept closer to the house, moving around it watching carefully for guards who might be posted outside and seeing none. Then she went still closer, skimming along the outer walls and peering in through the windows. Quick, careful glimpses, followed by slower, longer looks if she saw no one inside. By the time she'd circled the cabin fully she knew exactly what she faced.

  Peter was nowhere in sight She didn't think he was there. Michael was tied to a chair in the bedroom. One thug in there with him. The other three were lounging in the living room, eating.

  My goddamn pot pies.

  She returned to the bedroom, crouched below the window, and started to shake. The woman she'd spent the last six months believing herself to be was scared to death right now. She didn't want to do this. She wanted to run out of these woods, find a phone, call for help.

  Kira closed her eyes, and immediately her mind was flooded with images. She saw herself, cornered by three men in a dark ally. She saw blood dripping from her nose, tasted it on her lips. Her weapons were lying on the ground, out of reach. She lifted her gaze to the men, knew with a grim certainty they meant to kill her, and sent them a smile. "Guess this is it, then."

  "Maybe not quite," someone said from the far end of the alley.

  The three men spun around, so surprised by the voice coming from behind them that they started firing without even aiming first Kira dove for her guns, even as Michael strode into the ally, into the rain of bullets, his own guns blazing.

  He dropped two of them, and she blasted the third, still lying on her belly on the ground, just as he drew down on Michael.

  The echoes of the gunfire died and with them the ringing in her ears. She looked at Michael over the bodies lying between them. He smiled, and it lit his eyes. And she said, "You're late."

  "I'm right on time," he told her. "Did you think I wasn't going to show?"

  "Not for a minute." She moved into his arms, and he held her so tight she could feel him shaking just a little, and knew it was at having come so close to losing her.

  Outside the little cabin, Kira blinked slowly until the memory cleared away. And then she realized that it was still there. She could still find it there. She remembered!

  Not everything. Not yet, but... God, it was real. A real solid memory, and if she had time to sit and think she thought others would surely follow.

  But there was no time for that. Not now.

  "Well, well, what have we got here? Peeping Tom?"

  The man had come up behind her, stood looming over her. "Peeping Kira," she said, then she jerked her head backward, slamming her skull into his groin so hard he dropped to his knees. She sprang up, spun around, delivering a kick to the side of the man's head in the process. His gun flew from his hand as he went over sideways, and even as he opened his mouth to cry out, she delivered a fist to his windpipe to keep him quiet

  He lay there, gasping, hands clutching his neck as he fought to breathe. She used her own weapon to put him down for the count, flicking the safety back on just before the butt smashed into his skull. Then she flicked it off again, picked up the man's weapon, tucked it into the back of her pants. All of this before she knelt beside the man to make sure he wasn't going to be coming around any time soon.

  Her stomach convulsed when she realized he wasn't going to be coming around at all. He was dead. She'd killed a man without firing a shot. And she knew it wasn't the first time.

  For a moment, she wondered if she really wanted to remember the woman she'd been. But then a sound from inside the cabin drew her attention, and she peered through the window. The man in the room with Michael was drawing the point of a blade slowly down Michael's cheek. The knife point left a scarlet trail in its wake. And it left a furious rage in Kira's belly.

  She crept closer, ear to the wall, straining to hear.

  "The boss will be here soon. Since you're refusing to talk, my bet is he's not gonna see much use in keeping you around."

  "Sooner the better," Michael said.

  The man stopped studying his knife blade and stood back. "If you're in that much of a hurry, I could do it right now."

  "What, without your master giving you the okay? You haven't got the balls, pal."

  "No?" The man brought the blade down hard, driving it straight into the back of Michael's hand, where it was bound to the chair's arm, and into the wood beyond. Michael shouted, and his face contorted in pain. Kira's ability to control her temper evaporated. She rose up onto her feet, leveled the gun on the bastard, and pulled the trigger, taking him dead center of his forehead. His head snapped back, and then he went down, dead before he hit the floor.

  She met Michael's eyes for an instant. He was hurting, she could see it, but he mouthed the word "run."

  The bedroom door slammed open, and men poured in. One of them yelled, "Get outside, it came from outside!"

  Kira turned and raced into the cover of the forest, quickly skirting around to the front of the house, knowing they'd be focused on the rear, where she'd been. She moved quickly, as quietly as possible, back to the only place she could be certain they wouldn't find her. That trapdoor in the forest floor. She found it easily and realized that was because she remembered it.

  She ducked into the darkness, lowering the door carefully over her and scooting to the bottom of the steps. Then she raced back along the tunnel, all the way back until it ended. The men would be outside by now. All of them, combing the woods for her. They wouldn't be worried about Michael being alone for a few moments. Not with a blade nailing his hand to the chair, his face cut up, his body bound so tight he couldn't even wiggle. One of them might be watching the front door, she supposed, but then, she didn't intend to go in through the front door.

  She crept up the stairs, lifted the hidden panel in the floor, and quietly climbed upward, into the dark storage room.

  Chapter10

  Kira listened, her ear pressed to the closed door. Not a sound came through. She reached into her boot in utter darkness, unerringly closing her hand around the small, folding knife and flicking the button that flipped the blade out, then holding it in her teeth to keep her gun hands free. She pushed the door open, very slowly, and crept into the living room. No one was around. The front door stood partway open, the bedroom door was closed.

  She moved fast, across the open living room, avoiding the broken glass that littered the floor. There was no cover, nothing to duck behind, and she would be visible to anyone outside who happened to be looking in, so speed was the only option. Limit the chance of being glimpsed.

  Outside, she could hear the men shouting to each other as they searched the woods for her, though she couldn't make out their words. She paused outside
the bedroom door, again listening, before slowly turning the knob and opening the door.

  She sighed in relief when she saw no one besides Michael in the room, then tensed as she realized the blade was still in his hand.

  He's been hurt a lot worse than that, she thought involuntarily, and then a rush of memories came, one after the other. Michael with a knife wound, a bullet hole, bruised and broken from a hellish beating. Hell, he'd even been hit by a car once.

  She had to shake the memories away and focus on what she needed to do. When she did, she saw that he was staring at her, his face a mixture of relief, pain, and urgency. She closed the door behind her and holstered her gun. Taking the knife in her hand, she moved toward him, knelt, and quickly sliced through the ropes at his ankles, then the ones at his wrists. She paused then, her eyes on the blade through his hand, her hand hovering near it, shaking a little.

  He gripped the hilt before she could, and gritting his teeth, jerked on the blade.

  It didn't come out. His face was red, wet with moisture. His eyes shut tight, jaw clenched. "It's too deep into the chair. I can't get it with one hand. You've got to do it, babe. Pull straight up, hard as you can. Don't hesitate."

  "Hell." She folded her own knife and pocketed it, then she closed her hands around the fat handle of the large hunting knife. She put one foot on the wooden chair, wedging it beside Michael's thigh. "On three," she told him. He nodded, braced himself. "One, two—" She yanked as hard as she could, her stomach convulsing as the blade came free so suddenly she almost fell over backward. She dropped the blade, her gaze shooting to Michael's hand as blood bubbled from the wound. He drew it to his waist and held it there with the good hand. Kira lunged to the nearby dresser, yanking open a drawer and taking the first piece of fabric she felt inside, which turned out to be a small T-shirt. She brought it to him, kneeling in front of him, beginning to tear it into strips with her teeth.

  "Baby, we gotta get out of here. You can play nurse Nancy later." He took the shirt from her, twisting it quickly around his hand as he got to his feet. He stumbled a little and she gripped his arm, started toward the window.