Blake chuckled. “Now, you know I wouldn’t do anything like that.”
“Maybe not you personally.” She glanced at the thug standing beside her then at the one who’d now positioned himself near the front door.
“You can’t believe you’re going to make it out of this building alive.” Josh positioned himself in the line of fire between Blake and her, readying himself for whatever happened in the next few minutes.
“Of course I will. I’ve got the prime hostage of Riverfalls right here in my hands.” Blake rose to his feet, then pushed open the door to the balcony and looked outside. “Can you imagine the outcry there’d be if something happened to the charitable goddess Mackenzie Baudin?”
Josh followed the same line of sight. Then he heard the approaching noise. The thump-thump-thump of helicopter rotors. Louder and louder, closer and closer. OPAQUE? SWAT? He doubted both, because the look of pleasure on Blake’s face said his ride had arrived.
Blake turned and pulled his gun, motioning the thug by the front door toward the other thug and Macki. “Help him get her ready.”
Get her ready? Ready for what?
Panic shot across her face as one of the men pulled out a lift-harness from his pocket.
“You can’t do that to her.” Josh took a step toward the balcony door.
Blake aimed his gun point-blank at Josh’s chest. “Like I told your old man right before I kicked the chair out from under him, I can do whatever the hell I want.”
Josh flinched with a new kind of anger. “You? You killed my dad?”
“Sure as hell did.”
“Why? He’d done what you wanted.”
“The hell he did.” Blake sneered in disgust. “A few days before the crash, CT sent a couple guys around. Told your old man they wanted to play a trick on one of their college buddies from the past. He told us to get the hell out of his airport before he called the police. Can you believe that? His airport? Hah—I showed him.”
The sound of Macki’s scuffle with the men in the background had quieted, so Josh assumed they’d belted her into the harness. He could not under any circumstance—any at all—let them take her. Yeah, he might actually go down today like the threat had said, but not without one hell of a fight. And not without an answer to the question beating in his mind.
“Are you saying my dad didn’t help you? He wasn’t the one who took down the plane?” Josh needed that answer. Needed it bad.
“Hell no, he didn’t help. But I showed him who was in charge. I had some guys drug his food the day before the crash. He couldn’t make it to work because he was sick as a dog.” Blake glanced up at the loud thump-thump-thump. The curtains at the side of the door blew inward as the rotors whipped up the air outside.
“Then why did you kill him? Put the money in his bank account?”
“Are you that big of a fool?” Blake motioned for the men to bring Macki to the balcony.
From the sounds going on behind Josh, she was putting up one hell of a fight.
“Why? Why did you kill him?” Josh figured this might be his last fight. He wanted an answer before he died. “Did you need a fall guy that bad?”
“The money was just an afterthought.” Keeping the gun trained on Josh, Blake chambered a round as an evil grin crossed his face. “Your old man got himself killed because once the plane crashed, he called the police department. Asked to speak to the man in charge of the case. The cop transferred him to Grey. And your old man told him everything that had happened at the airport.”
Of all the people at the police department, his dad had been transferred to Lieutenant Grey. Coincidences like that didn’t just happen. “Who transferred him to Grey?”
“Me.” Blake sneered. “When Grey told him it was just a coincidence, your old man asked to speak to someone higher up. That was his last mistake. I drove straight to your house and took care of the situation.” He laughed. “You see, I’m a closer. Grey was a follower.”
Slowly, Josh sidestepped a couple times. Lining himself up for a straight run at the gloating son of a bitch standing in front of him.
A haunted shadow seemed to glide across Blake’s expression. “Funny thing is, I don’t think your old man feared me one damn bit. Kind of like you. You’re dangerous, because you’re not afraid of me. Not afraid to die for your cause.”
True. He had no fear for himself. For Macki, that was another story. A swinging ladder dropped down from the chopper hovering above. He had no doubt the attached rope and harness hook was for her.
Josh lowered his head and charged the middle of Blake’s body. Knocked him onto the balcony. Fighting for his and Macki’s lives, he slammed and pummeled the killer with his own form of pain. He ripped out the knife he had hidden inside his pants leg, slashing it across the man’s side. Blake came back with an iron rod of his own.
Inside the penthouse, cursing and gunfire and the growling yells of charging OPAQUE agents gave Josh strength. Backup had arrived. If he went down, OPAQUE would protect Macki.
Blake brought the rod down on Josh’s arm, kicking him in the chest as he did, then jumped onto the balcony ledge. Struggling to his feet, Josh pulled his second knife from the strap on his thigh.
“Want to know the last thing your father said?” Blake reached out for the swinging ladder and wrapped his arm around the bottom step as it swung away from the building. “He hoped his son wouldn’t be the one to find him. That’s when I kicked the chair out from under him.”
Josh flung the knife hard and straight and true to the bull’s-eye of Blake’s chest. The man screamed in agony as he lost his grip and plummeted to the street below.
Macki rushed to his side as Drake, Cummings, and Mitch stood in the doorway.
“Did you hear what Blake said?” Josh prayed someone else had heard the confession.
Drake gave him a thumbs-up. “We heard everything. I knew you came from good stock.”
“Are you okay?” Macki trailed her fingers down his arm as they headed inside.
His breathing had calmed, but inside he was still on an adrenaline rush. This wasn’t the end of OPAQUE’s search for Coercion Ten, but this was the end of his own personal search for redemption. The end of his current assignment. “I’m fine. How about you?”
She smiled and kissed his lips. “If you’re okay, I’m okay.”
Drake handed him some ice for his jaw and gave her a piece of plexiglass.
The sting of cold against his jaw brought Josh back to the situation at hand. He count-checked the people in the room. Had they lost anyone? “Where’s Edward?”
“He took off the minute we had things under control. Said he and Darla were going to disappear off the radar for a good while. Maybe start a new life. Probably a good idea.” Drake did a slow nod of his head.
“We were damn lucky Edward had sneaked back into town once he got his wife to safety,” Mitch added. “If he hadn’t been holed up in that apartment across from the hotel, this could have had a whole different outcome.”
“What do you mean?”
Cummings leaned into the conversation. “Edward’s the one who called me, even before your alarm call came in for help. Said he’d been watching out the window and thought the limo pulling into Macki’s garage was out of line.”
“I’ll miss them. But I’m glad they’ll be safe in their other life,” Macki said.
Josh hugged her against his side. He’d never tell her “safe” was only a relative term for anyone who’d ever been an OPAQUE agent. Safe was second-to-second in his world. Now her world.
“But just so you know,” she huffed out a statement in her sigh, “I don’t ever want to leave this life, I’d rather be—”
Placing his fingers across her lips, he leaned in and caressed her cheek. “I promise we will never disappear into another life. What you see is what you get.”
“And what I see is all I ever want.” Smiling, she stretched upward and gave him a kiss that shot through his body. “Your hand, it’s bleeding.
”
Josh quirked the side of his mouth. “No big deal. You’re all I need to stop the pain.”
Drake bent to help Mitch pick up the pieces of the cutting board strewn across the floor.
“What the hell happened to that thing?” Josh asked.
Mitch plopped the pieces on the granite countertop. “You’d have been proud. She smashed the one guy in the back of the head with the plexiglass cutting board twice. The second time she hit him, it shattered.”
Josh laughed. “The board or the guy’s head?”
“Both.” Macki dropped the piece she was holding on top of the pile.
“That’s okay, honey. I’ll get you another cutting board.” He brushed his lips against hers. “Fact is, I’ll get you anything you ever want.”
“Good.” She leaned against him then tilted her chin upward. “See? I told you I could be an OPAQUE agent.”
“No way in hell!”
“We’ll talk about that later.” She stooped to pick up another piece of the cutting board.
He growled deep in his throat. “I said no way in hell.”
“I heard you. And I said…” She glanced up. Smiled. Licked her lips and winked, then brushed her fingers up the side of his leg as she stood. “…we’ll talk later.”
He was in for a hard life with her. But, sometimes, hard was good.
Epilogue
Josh couldn’t believe he’d married the sexiest woman alive a little over three hours ago. To wed her and bed her was all he’d wanted, but here they were, still at the reception. He’d shed his tie the moment they left the church. But Macki still had on that damn head-to-toe chaste and pure white wedding dress. Of course, for the past month, they’d already thrown the chaste and pure out the door.
When asked why the quick wedding, they both had one answer—when you find the one you love, why wait? And they were truly in love.
Sure, there were a few things about each other they were still getting used to, like the fact there’d always be two coffeepots in the house. She’d acquiesced to extra security measures at the penthouse and any place they traveled. He’d accepted the fact he wouldn’t always know where she was or what she was doing, but he relied on the idea she knew not to take chances.
“You look mighty handsome, Mr. Slater.” Macki eased her arms around his neck. “And just so you know, I love you more than all the shoes in my closet. Now and forever.”
That was a high compliment. One of the first things he’d learned about keeping her happy was to keep quiet when it came to how many pairs of shoes she owned. For starters, he could tell that was a nonnegotiable topic. Second, some of those sky-high heels were sexy as hell.
Her fingers played peek-a-boo with his shirt collar, then the buttons on his shirt, then his belt as she teased her lips against his ear. The woman had him coming and going. Truth was, he enjoyed every ounce of her attention. Plus, he had plans of his own for later.
“I love you, too. Now and forever.” Leaning in, he nuzzled her neck. He’d never get enough of hearing those words pass between them, but he was thinking way past words at the moment. “How much longer do we have to stay?”
He wondered how she’d react when she found out he’d locked off the entire hot tub room back at the hotel so they could have an evening all to themselves. Going further, he’d ordered her favorite flowers and music and candles to fill the place. All he had to do now was make one tiny phone call as they started back to the hotel. Catering would not only light the candles, they’d have a wedding-night dinner wheeled into the room and waiting for them, along with chilled champagne and beer.
Stepping back, she took on a serious expression. “Just a little longer. No more than an hour. I promise.”
“I’m gonna hold you to that. In fact, I plan to hold you till we’re old and gray and…” Hell, he planned to hold her till his dying day, but this wasn’t the time to use that word.
He grabbed her close, letting his own hands play a game with the satin of her gown’s bodice. She squealed on an intake of breath when he touched a sensitive spot then blushed as half the room turned to see where the noise had come from. When he raised his hands in an I-didn’t-do-anything ruse, the people in the room applauded and lifted their glasses.
“Go see your friends. I’ll be here when you come back.” He was one lucky man and he knew it.
She squeezed his hand as she trailed away. “I won’t be long.”
Even as she mingled among friends, he kept an eye out for her. Would he be that way forever? Probably. Not hovering, but protecting her from things that might be outside her realm of protecting herself. Judging from the broken pieces of the cutting board, there wasn’t a lot she couldn’t protect herself from, but the world held a lot of dangers that couldn’t be quelled with a knock on the back of the head.
Josh raised his glass in acknowledgment to Mitch standing across the room. He’d agreed to hang around to help wrap up the case and be the best man at the wedding. Now he was playing the lonely guy to a group of women hanging on to his every word. Before the night was over, Mitch would zero in on one, spend a few days seeing the sights of Riverfalls, and then move on to his next assignment. Everybody in the agency knew his dating MO almost down to the second.
Over in the corner at a table, laughing and eating and enjoying a safe day, were Cat, Joey, and a few other agents from the St. Louis area who’d driven up to wish Josh their best. That meant a lot to him. A whole hell of a lot. Every one of them had taken Macki in as one of their own. That meant a lot to him, too.
Cummings had been invited, but had declined. Said he wanted time to sort out what he’d missed in his time as Blake’s partner. Josh figured the man needed to figure out what to do with the rest of his life, since he’d quit the force the day after the shoot-out. He still didn’t know Cummings’s first name. Or was it the last?
Glancing at Macki in her beautiful white wedding gown, all smiles and beauty and hope, Josh was glad he’d found where he was supposed to be. Right here, or wherever the future took them, with the woman he loved. Drake had asked him to be second-in-command of OPAQUE, putting him in charge on the domestic front.
After some soul searching, Josh had agreed, but he still planned to be a member of Team Shades. Of course, he’d talked to Macki first, and she’d convinced him they’d make a great husband-and-wife team for the agency. He’d agreed on one condition. Once the children started coming, they’d discuss the subject again. She’d agreed.
“A penny for your thoughts?” Drake looked the dapper part of I’m-here-to-give-the-bride-away. And he had. The tough head of the agency had walked down that aisle, kissed his niece on the cheek, and placed her hand in Josh’s.
“They’re not worth your money, sir.”
No one would ever hear Josh’s deepest thoughts except Macki. But there was something he needed to say to the man standing beside him. “While we’ve got some time alone, I want to thank you, Drake. You’ve always been there when I needed some sense drilled into me.” He held out his hand. “I couldn’t have done it without you all these years.”
“You ever need anything, I’m still here.” Drake took the hand in his. “You and Macki are gonna be fine. Since you two are out of my hair, maybe I can have a life of my own.”
Josh doubted that. The man was too work-focused to think about a personal life. What woman in her right mind would want a man who never laughed, spent half his time undercover, and watched people like his life depended on it? Hell, he’d just described every OPAQUE agent in the world. Himself included.
“I wish we’d been able to find out who Blake’s dad is. Who’s really in charge of Coercion Ten,” Josh said.
“Don’t worry. We will.” Drake grinned. “At least now we know there’s a man in charge. Tracking backward from Blake may be just the lead we need.”
All thought of business left Josh’s mind as the smell of vanilla and jasmine drifted up behind him. He lifted his arm to pull Macki into his side, and her hair ti
ckled his hand. She’d finally taken off the veil and let her hair down.
He tangled his fingers through the ends, then pulled her even tighter against his side. “I like that better.”
“I figured you would.” She laid her head against his chest. “I’m tired.”
“Ready to go?”
Punching him lightly in the chest, she winked and fluttered her eyelashes. “Don’t you wish. What are you two talking about? Did you get Roxy relocated, Uncle Drake?”
“She’s in Florida along with Tessa. Seems she felt making sure the young woman got a new start would take the place of the daughter she thought she’d had all these years. They’re staying at an OPAQUE safe house in that area. We’ll give them a new life later.” Drake nodded in an absentminded way. “From there, it’s up to them.”
Macki kissed her uncle’s cheek. “Thanks. By the way, did Josh tell you we stopped by the cemetery after we left the chapel?”
Josh nodded. After the truth had come out, he’d had his dad’s body moved to lie next to his mother. Yesterday, the cemetery had called to let him know the new stone was in place.
“We wanted both sets of parents to see how happy we are today.” She smiled with an air of contentment. “Even sprinkled some of the wedding flowers around.”
“Well, you are the best-looking couple I’ve ever seen. Your parents would all be proud. Guess my work is done. And that’s my cue to leave.” Drake breathed out a long sigh, leaned in for a hug from Macki, a handshake from Josh. “Stop by Captiva on your way back from your honeymoon in Europe. We’ll rent a charter for some fishing.”
Drake pushed past them, taking a cookie from the tray on the side table. He turned back as he reached the doorway leading out of the hall. “About time you had some good desserts at these shindigs, Macki. But I thought oatmeal cookies made you sick.”
Waving, her uncle disappeared out the door.
What the hell did that mean? Oatmeal cookies made her sick?
Josh couldn’t believe what he’d heard. “Macki…”
She glanced around the room—here, there, anyplace but at him.
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