"They'll be watching that way."
Even as he said it, she heard the men returning through the front door. "Not now, they won't. Come on." She tugged him toward the window, yanking a blanket from the bed and throwing it over the sill so they wouldn't get cut on the shattered glass.
He shoved her through first, then followed, and then they were on the ground and running. She imagined the men were already in the bedroom before they got five yards from the window, but there was no time to look back, no way to judge whether the trees they'd put between them were dense enough to hide them. No way to know for sure whether the men were in pursuit.
Beside her, Michael ran, his gait uneven, breathing labored. He clutched the wounded hand to his side as he ran, and she knew he was hurting.
"This way," he said.
"That way's the lake."
"I know. They won't be looking there. Come on."
She trusted him, had no idea what he had in mind, but she trusted him. She always had. He would never let her down the way her father had.
Kira stopped running. What the hell was that supposed to mean? The way her father had?
Michael tugged her hand. "Come on, almost there."
"Yeah." She shook off the thought the memory, filed it away to be mulled over later, when they were safe.
They emerged from the trees near the glistening lake's gently sloping shore. A boat rested there, far from the cabin, and she wondered if this was yet another of Michael's ingenious escape plans.
He grabbed the bow and shoved the boat into the water. "Get in," he told her.
"You get in. And don't waste time arguing, I'm not the one with a hole in my hand."
He got in. She shoved the boat farther into the water, then she climbed into the boat with him, gripping the oars, dipping them into the water, and pushing them farther, both from the shore and from the house. Michael placed a cell phone call to someone, naming a meeting spot and a time. Rescue, Kira thought, was at hand.
"Easy" he said when he finished the call. "Don't row too fast. And try to stay low. Get us around that bend in the shoreline where we can't be seen from the cabin, and then we'll make for the far side."
She nodded, and followed his instructions, even while delivering a few of her own. "Rip that shirt up, and bandage your hand. Your face is a mess, too. You need stitches, Michael."
"Yeah, and probably a tetanus shot."
She shook her head. "You had one of those summer before last, when that lowlife Farentino jabbed you in the ass with that dirty meat hook."
She looked up slowly. He did, too. "You remember that?"
She nodded. "I remember...more and more. Little things, but entire incidents, instead of just snippets."
"What kinds of things?"
She shrugged.
"Tell me. I really want to know." He looked around them. "Besides, they haven't seen us. We got nothing but time now." He began tearing the shirt into strips and bandaging his wounded hand.
Drawing a breath, she nodded. "Okay."
The rowboat drifted on its own, slowly but steadily toward the far shore. She pulled the oars out of the water, let them rest in the bottom of the boat, upper ends held in the oarlocks. "Mostly, I remember things about us. Our wedding, that came back to me clearly. And then...well, just us. Together. Fighting, dodging bullets, laughing..." She averted her eyes before she went on. "Making love."
He was staring at her. She felt his eyes on her face, and chanced a look up. His eyes were warm, caring. "It's okay," he said. "Don't be embarrassed. If you knew how hard it's been for me not to just tell you..." He reached out, cupping her cheek in his palm. "That you remember us, God, Kira, that means a lot."
She covered his hand with hers. "To me, too. I mean, for you to keep quiet, for my sake, even though it meant watching me make plans to marry another man—" She frowned then. "But that engagement to Peter—it was never real, was it? I was playing him, it was a cover."
He nodded. "The marriage wouldn't have been legit The license wasn't for real to begin with, and the plan was for the troops to move in at the reception, when all Peter's contacts would have been in one place. I never would have let it go too far, Kira."
"But how could you know? I mean...I could have slept with him, and you—"
His jaw went tight and his hand fell from her face. "No."
She blinked and shook her head quickly. "I'm not saying I did. I mean I'm pretty sure I didn't. I never, but—"
"I know you didn't" He pushed his good hand through his hair, shaking his head. "Look, that was too much to ask, even for your health's sake. I couldn't risk you letting, that guy touch you. Do you know how furious you would have been later on, when you remembered that he was just a suspect? That it was all a cover? No, Kira, I wasn't willing to risk that I've had you...under surveillance this whole time."
A heat sizzled through her veins. An anger that made no sense to the new Kira, but fit perfectly with the old one. "You had someone watching me?"
"Not someone. Me," he said. "Your phones are bugged, your bedroom's miked, your car is wired, there are cameras all over the freaking place. You've barely been out of my sight since you left the hospital, Kira. And yeah, I knew it would piss you off. But not as much as my letting you sleep with a criminal would have."
She closed her eyes. "You...you were watching my most private moments."
"Come on, Kira. I'm your husband. I was trying to protect you."
She heard his sigh and opened her eyes
"I know, I know," he said, "there's nothing you hate more than being dependent on a man for anything, but Jesus, I didn't see that I had any other choice."
He looked truly torn. She reached out a hand to cover his. "No, I don't see that you did either."
He blinked, maybe shocked by that.
"What made me so determined never to be dependent on anyone? Any man?'
He looked away, shrugged.
"Was I always that way?"
"No. Not always."
She gripped the oars, returning them to the water, giving a few strokes to get them moving faster again. "I keep getting...that it's something to do with my father. But the only glimpses of memory I've had of him feel as if we were—close. Really, really close."
He nodded. "You were. You and your dad were almost inseparable."
"There's something else," she said. "Something changed that, came between us, didn't it?"
Facing her squarely, Michael nodded.
"What was it, Michael?"
He hesitated, and she dropped the oars, gripped his shoulders. "Come on, the memories are returning. This is important, and it's not going to be too much for me to take. What came between my father and me?"
Without blinking or flinching away, he replied, "I did."
Kira frowned. "He...didn't approve of us?"
"He forbade you to marry me. Told me to stay away. He didn't want you working for the DEA in the first place, much less married to it." He shook his head. "It was only out of concern for you, Kira."
"But I married you anyway."
"In secret. We planned to tell your family after we returned from Africa."
She nodded slowly.
"Your father told you he'd disown you if you married me. You considered it a betrayal. After that, you just...you changed. He hurt you badly, Kira, and, I don't know, for a while there, it seemed like you expected me to do the same."
She nodded slowly. "I put up shields. Told myself not to love you too much, not to become too dependent, not to let myself need you."
"Is that a memory or a guess?" he asked.
She lowered her head, pressed her fingers to her forehead. "I'm not sure. Maybe a little of both." She drew a deep breath. "He...he was in Africa with us. He was killed. In the same explosion that nearly killed me."
"Yeah. Do you remember that?"
"I know it happened. But the event...it's still hazy. I can see parts. I remember pain, I remember trying to walk through this smoke and dust, c
alling for you, calling for Dad..." She frowned, because no more would come. Then she narrowed her eyes. "Dad worked for the DEA, too, didn't he? That's why we were all in Africa together. We were gathering evidence. Peter had drug connections there."
Michael nodded. "Your father trained me. For a long time, he and I were almost as close as you and he were. Or...I thought so." He pointed past her. "We're almost to shore."
She picked up the oars and used them to push the boat to the shoreline, then she climbed out and dragged the craft's nose onto the beach. She reached for him, and he didn't wince when he moved. The cut on his hand had stopped bleeding, and he'd managed to wash the blood away as they'd crossed the lake, with strips of the T-shirt and lake water.
He stepped onto the shore.
She couldn't help but slide her arms around his waist, and his came around her as if the action were reflexive. Resting her head on his chest, she said, "God, this has been a nightmare for you. All of it."
His good hand in her hair, he whispered, "The nightmare would have been if I'd lost you. Have I, Kira?"
She lifted her head slowly and met his eyes, let them probe hers. "Even if I never remember another thing, I know that what we had was real, and it was good. And that I want it back."
His eyes roamed her face for another moment, and then he lowered his head and kissed her. His mouth covered hers, and then his tongue nudged her lips apart, and she opened to him, eager to explore the feelings he stirred in her. She held him harder, tangling her tongue with his, as her heart pounded and her breaths stuttered. And when she arched against him, she felt him, hard, and pushing back.
She opened her eyes, drawing her mouth away from his, and whispered, "I want to make love to you, Michael. Just as soon as your hand is patched up, I want us to—"
"Hand, hell." He scooped her into his arms, took her mouth even as he carried her further across the shore, and into a meadow of tall grasses and wildflowers. Dropping to his knees, he laid her down in the grass, stretched out beside her, kissing her jaw, her neck. His wounded hand lay on the ground above her head, but the good one ran over her cheeks, and then her breasts, and then her belly. She wanted to touch him, too, and quickly unbuttoned his shirt and pushed it down from his shoulders. She ran her palms over his chest, and the fire inside her burned hotter.
Michael managed to lift up the top she wore, one-handed, then he pushed it higher, exposing her breasts to the night As he fondled them he whispered, "God, I've missed you, Kira. The feel of you. The taste of you." He kissed a path down her neck, across her chest and breasts, and then he suckled her, and she clutched his head and whimpered in pleasure. His hand moved lower, between her legs, rubbing there, until she arched her hips off the ground. He responded instantly, easily unzipping the pants. She pushed them down as far as she could reach, then wriggled them the rest of the way off, and kicked them aside. She lay there, naked, and he rose up a little, so he could look at her. He stroked her thighs until she parted them, and then he put his hand between them, rubbing, spreading and exploring her.
She put her hand over his, and pushed him deeper, arching her hips, rubbing against his fingers, closing her eyes. She moved her own hand to the bulge of his pants, then, stroking him until he groaned. Then she unfastened the button, carefully lowered the zipper, and shoved the pants off him.
Impatient, he backed away, only for a moment When he came back to her, he was as naked as she, and when he began to caress her and suckle her again, she clutched his hips and pulled him to her, wrapping her thighs around him, tugging him until he slid inside her. Then she closed her eyes and whispered his name. "Oh, God, Michael. Yes."
He drove into her then, beyond restraint, she thought. He drove the breath from her lungs and filled her so deeply she cried out and moved to take him into her again and again. He kissed her as he plunged into her, pushing her closer and closer to heaven, and when she exploded around him, he clasped her hip in his hand, holding her to him to take even more. Her body shattered, shuddered, convulsed, and she moaned in pleasure, then held him hard as he spilled into her.
He held her tight in his arms while her body stopped shaking, and her muscles uncoiled, even as the sparks of pleasure played out. Eventually, he rolled onto his side, pulling her into his arms and holding her as if she were something precious.
His fingers framed her chin and jaw, and he tipped her head to his, kissed her. "You're the best thing that ever happened to me," he told her. "Thank you for coming back to me, baby. I couldn't have survived if you hadn't."
She drew a breath, "Things got tense between us, before all this."
He nodded. "I thought you blamed me for the rift with your father."
"No. It wasn't that I was holding back, protecting myself from being hurt again, the way he hurt me. I remember so much more now. I'm sorry, Michael. I'm so sorry I hurt you."
"It doesn't matter."
"It does. But I want you to know that even though I remember that feeling, that fear, I don't feel it anymore. I left it behind. I know you'll never hurt me."
"I'd die first."
"I know. I really do."
He kissed her again, and she thought she tasted a tear on his lips, and she was overwhelmed with the intensity of her feelings for this man. Her husband.
But as much as she would have liked to lie there in his arms until sunrise, she knew they had to move on. He needed treatment. And they both needed to put more space between themselves and Peter's thugs. She sat up, reluctantly. "We should get dressed, get moving."
"I know. Our backup should be arriving to meet us about three miles from here."
She nodded, reached for her clothes and pulled them on. By the time she finished, he'd pulled on his pants and shirt, but was still struggling to fasten them one-handed.
"Let me get that," she said, smiling a little. She moved close to him, and he arched against her hand as she fastened the jeans. She stroked his chest, teasing him, as she buttoned up his shirt When she finished, he covered her hands with his good one. "I never stopped loving you, Kira. I want to be sure you know that. Not for a minute."
Her throat went tight "I—"
"Don't even twitch," Peter shouted from the darkness. "You're completely surrounded."
Chapter 11
Michael's hands tightened on hers, and his eyes held hers for an instant before shifting past her to scan the darkness around them.
"Step away from him, Kira, or I'll drop you both where you stand."
She glanced downward, seeing her gun belts on the ground, concealed by the grass. "He's not well, Peter. He can barely stand on his own."
"Back away from him."
So they can kill him, she thought Peter would take me alive, avenge his wounded pride before he finished me off.
She met Michael's eyes, then shifted hers downward, toward the guns in the grass nearby. She saw him follow her gaze.
"He'll drop like a rock if I let him go."
"He's gonna drop like a rock either way. Back off."
She met his eyes again, prayed he would do what she wanted him to do. Then she brought her hands to her sides, backing two steps away, deliberately staying between Michael and Peter. Michael slumped to the ground.
"Kill him," she heard Peter say. " Michael shouted, "Down, Kira!" And even as she dropped to her knees, he rose up onto his, tossing one gun to her with his wounded hand, while firing the other one in the direction of Peter's voice. The meadow exploded in gunfire.
Kira caught her weapon, turned and dropped to her belly in the grass, putting her back to Peter, firing at the muzzle flashes around them, one after the other. Gun smoke rose, because they were all so close and firing so rapidly. It stung her eyes, choked her.
And then the shooting stopped all at once.
She lay still a moment, trying to see through the smoke. It hovered there, in the heavy air, not rising or dissipating as fast as she wished it would. "Michael?" she called softly, half expecting the sound of her voice to draw more
gunfire.
When it didn't, she pushed herself upright. "Michael?'
No reply. She walked through the mists, trying to find her way and realized slowly that the sun was rising. Its rays pierced the mist, to fall upon bodies in the grass. Peter's body, those of his men. Bloody, still, lifeless. Dead, all of them.
"Michael?"
She searched for him, through the smoke and now the mist rising from the lake as well, and suddenly she was back in Africa. Blood was trickling down her face from the wound to her head, and she staggered as she walked through the rubble and smoke, searching for her father.
And then she found him. He lay beneath a pile of debris, and she fell to her knees, pushing it aside, gathering him to her. They'd been angry enemies for months by then, but suddenly, it didn't matter. "Dad. God, Dad, are you all right?"
His face was ashen, but his eyes blinked open, met hers. "Kira."
"I'll get help," she promised. "Lie still, I'll get help."
He clutched her hand in a grip surprisingly fierce. "No. Listen. Listen to me, daughter." She blinked, staring down at him. "I was wrong," he told her. "I was wrong, Kira. Michael's a good man. Maybe...the best I've ever known."
"What are you saying?" she asked, stroking his head.
"Your mother—she hasn't been happy in our marriage. Too many secrets. Too much I have to hide from her. But you...you're not your mother. You're strong. And you know."
"Mom loves you," she assured him.
"And suffers for it. I didn't want that for you. But...he loves you, Kira. You marry Michael. You tell him...tell him I'm sorry."
"You can tell him yourself." She bent closer, kissed his cheek. "I'm going to get help."
He nodded. "I love you, Kira. Be happy."
Then his eyes fell closed, and she knew he was gone. Even though she searched for a pulse, she knew he was gone, and when she saw the hole in his chest, she knew there was no chance to revive him. She held him in her arms, and she cried, until, swamped with dizziness and weakness, she let him go and fell to the ground beside him. Moments later, Michael was leaning over her, whispering her name, and she was staring up at him, trying to speak. And then there was only darkness.
The Bride Wore A Forty-Four Page 7
