All the hope inside her died, and Lili looked away from him, pushing him back and out of her. "I tried," she said wearily. "At least I can say that."
Twenty-Four
"United Airlines Flight 896 with service to New York's LaGuardia Airport is in the final boarding process through Gate B-8. All ticketed passengers should now be on board…"
Matt sat beside Lili, hunched forward, elbows on his knees. She leaned in the opposite direction, briefcase in her lap, arms crossed over it.
Not exactly the body language of young lovers unwilling to part.
Glancing at her, he said, "It's time for you to go, Lili."
"I know."
She was pale and quiet, her eyes hidden by dark sunglasses. The ache in his arm was nothing compared to the ache inside. Even certain as he was that saying good-bye to her was for the best, it still hurt.
And it would hurt for a good long while yet.
"This is it, I guess," Lili said, standing and pulling the strap of her briefcase over her shoulder.
Matt came to his feet as well, still stiff with the banging he'd received, his arm in the sling. "Good-bye, Lili. Stay safe."
She nodded. "Same to you. If you're ever in New York, stop by to say hi."
"I'll do that," he said, but it didn't sound convincing even to his own ears.
Polite untruths, acting like nothing was wrong.
"You're a good man," she said quietly. "Remember what you told Joey Mancuso, Matt. There are always choices."
He had nothing to say to that. Swallowing, he shifted his gaze to the few remaining passengers heading through the boarding gate.
"That's all I wanted to say. I have to go now." She leaned forward and pressed a kiss to his cheek. "Thank you for all you've done. Be happy."
Be happy.
Grief and anger burned at the back of his eyes. Abruptly, he took her by the shoulders and pulled her close, kissing her with hard desperation. No chaste kiss of friendship, no sweetly romantic farewell. He kissed her like a lover, deeply and thoroughly, until he felt her body tremble.
Finally she pushed away, and a single tear fell from beneath her sunglasses, tracking down her cheek, over the bruised and split lip. Her chin trembled, then she tightened her mouth, turned, and walked away from him.
The woman collecting the tickets noticed the tears – and probably the lip – and likely jumped to conclusions. She gently touched Lili on her arm. Lili, her face averted, shook her head and walked into the jetway, not once looking back at him, her shoulders square, head held high.
A good thing, Matt told himself. He didn't want her to break down. No more than he wanted to sink down onto a chair, surrounded by hundreds of strangers, and cry like a damn baby.
Intending to put as much distance as possible between him and Lili's plane, he stalked away. Before long, though, he slowed, then stopped amid the constantly moving stream of people. Slowly, he turned and walked to a window, from which he could just glimpse her plane.
Matt rested his forehead against the glass, watching her plane back away from the gate, then taxi toward the runway. It took off, nose sharply angling upward, and he watched until it was only a speck against the clouds.
When he could no longer see it, he turned from the window and headed for his car. As he drove in the heavy traffic, all he could think about was that single tear falling from beneath her dark glasses.
Taking a deep breath, Matt tried to shake free of the memory. He had a dozen things to do – Dan Armistead wanted to talk with him, and he was supposed to go to the police station again. First, however, he needed to see Manny and Dal.
At the hospital, he steeled himself for the difficult visit as he walked down the bustling halls smelling of sickness and disinfectant. He sought out Manny first, and found him in a wheelchair, his leg encased in a bulky cast and propped up. His bandaged hand lay on his lap, and he held a TV remote in his other hand, rapidly cruising through channels. When he saw Matt in the doorway, the bored glaze of his eyes vanished and a grin split his stubbled face.
"Matt!" He motioned him in. "Hey, my man, good to see you."
In the brief instance their gazes met, a wealth of understanding passed between them.
"Good to see you, too, Manny." Matt squeezed his shoulder, and smiled. "How's it going? You look like shit."
"Thanks, you asshole." Manny grinned. "I'm trying to persuade the nurse that I can't shave myself left-handed and need her to do it. You should see her. She's hot, man. Real nice on the eyes." His grin faded, and his gaze took in the sling, the cuts and bruises. "You know, you don't look so good yourself."
"Been better," Matt agreed.
"Monica told me what happened. You're lucky to be alive." He shook his head. "I still can't believe this whole thing about shoes and gangsters and shit."
"I hear you," Matt said, sitting on the narrow hospital bed. He lifted his sling. "But I got the bullet hole to prove it happened."
"And a broken heart, yes?"
Matt glanced away. "It's for the best."
Manny was quiet for a moment. "What are you gonna do now?"
"I don't know." He looked up again. "Meet with Dan and hand in my letter of resignation. Go down to the police station for my slap on the wrist, and see if they'll give me back my gun. Take my boat out for a few days."
"Sounds like a plan." Manny nodded, meeting Matt's gaze briefly again. "Hey," he said. "You wanna sign my cast?"
"Sure."
Matt took the offered pen, and leaned forward. He signed: To the luckiest bad-ass I know – get better. Matt.
"So what's going on with this leg of yours?" Matt asked, too raw to handle any further questions about himself.
For the next hour, he and Manny talked about everything that didn't touch on anything too personal or painful, until Manny's easy-on-the-eyes nurse arrived with lunch, medicine, and a razor.
Manny winked, and Matt left with a grin. He headed to Dal's room, his smile fading, and spotted Jodie standing outside, talking seriously with a man in OR scrubs. He'd met Jodie several times before; she was a dark-haired, energetic woman, pretty and young – but today lines of strain marked her face, and her eyes held none of the sparkle he remembered.
Her eyes widened when she saw him. She finished her conversation with the doctor, and once he'd walked away she held out her arms to Matt, face tightening as she tried not to cry.
Matt took her in a hard embrace, squeezing his eyes shut, and felt her slight body shudder in his arms.
"Oh, my God, Matt," Jodie said with a sniff, pulling back. She gave him a wobbly smile, and tucked her hair behind her ear. "We were all worried sick about you. How are you?"
"Forget about me. How's Dal?"
"He's still drifting in and out of consciousness, but he's doing okay," Jodie answered, her voice tired. "He seems to be able to move without trouble, but he complains of pain a lot, and he has some trouble talking. The doctor thinks that's probably just because of the pain medication. But he's doing okay," she repeated, this time smiling a little. "It'll be a long, hard road to recovery, but it doesn't matter. He's alive, and that's all that counts."
"How are you doing?" he asked, searching her face.
"Tired, but I'm better now that he's awake. We'll beat this thing, me and Dal. I love him too much to let him give up." She smiled again. "He's going to be such a big baby, and I know this sounds weird, but I can't wait for the bad moods and short temper that'll mean he'll be fine."
Matt smiled back, knowing she meant every word. The road ahead would be tough for a few years, but she understood that and was prepared. "Dal's a lucky guy to have you, Jodie."
She blushed, and for some reason, the sight of her pink cheeks hit with a sharp, inner pain. He took a long, silent breath, trying to block out memories of Lili – laughing, yelling at him, loving him, attacking that hulking gunman. Without her, it felt like somebody had hacked a gaping, black hole in his life. Whenever he turned around, he kept expecting to see her.
"Can I visit with him?" he asked after a moment.
"Sure. I don't know if he's still awake, though. Come on."
Matt followed her inside. Unlike Manny's room, with its open drapes and blaring television, this room was darker, quieter. Dal lay on the narrow bed, covered by a blanket, hooked up to IVs and catheters. Bandages swathed his head, and his face was so swollen that he hardly looked like the same kid. Tears stung Matt's eyes, and he blinked them away.
He sat next to the bed, aware of Jodie behind him, her hand on his shoulder. He took Dal's cool hand, careful of the IV lines. "Hey, Dal. How's it hanging, kid?"
At the sound of his voice, Dal's eyes fluttered open and he smiled faintly. "Hey." His voice was low, difficult to hear. "I messed up, huh?"
"Nah," Matt answered, tightening his hand over Dal's. "Don't you even think that. It was my screw-up, not yours."
"You take them down?"
"Yeah." The brutal memory flashed to mind again, in all its chilling detail. He swallowed. "I did."
Dal's eyes drifted closed, then opened again. "I don't feel too good," he said, his tone apologetic.
"Considering what happened, I guess you wouldn't," Matt agreed. "I have to get going anyway. You take it easy, hear me?"
"Getting shot in the head's not so bad. Everybody knows us guys have a spare brain below the belt anyway." He managed another weak grin. "It won't keep me down."
"Better not." Matt grinned back. "Don't make me have to come in here and kick your ass out of bed."
Jodie laughed, and Dal made a huffing sound that might've been a laugh, too.
Not wanting to tire out Dal, or intrude on Jodie's time with her husband while he was awake and responsive, Matt gave Dal's hand a last squeeze, then left. Jodie followed him.
After making sure the door was shut, she fixed him with a steady look. "Tony Graziano's men – were they the bastards who shot my husband?"
Matt nodded. The wounded gunman had admitted as much, according to Monica. Matt, of course, hadn't been allowed anywhere near the man. Through clenched teeth, Monica had said: You lie low and keep your mouth shut. We'll handle it.
Jodie took a long, deep breath. "The men who died, did you kill them?"
He went still, not wanting to go back to that night, to the look in the big gunman's eyes before he toppled over, dying.
All he could answer was: "Yes."
Jodie stared at him for a long moment, then her eyes hardened. "Good," she whispered. "I'm glad. Thank you."
With a last quick hug and a dry brush of her lips against his cheek, Jodie returned to Dal's room, leaving Matt behind, stunned and cold with a deep, black fear.
Slowly, he turned away and headed back to his car, not even aware of the rush of activity around him. In the parking ramp, his footsteps echoed on concrete, and the wind moaned beneath the low ceilings. He opened the door of his BMW, ducked inside, and slid the key into the ignition.
Jodie's words haunted him; he couldn't get them out of his head. Instead of starting the car, he slumped forward, rested his forehead on the steering wheel, and squeezed his eyes shut.
Twenty-Five
Lili stared out her office window, her breath fogging the glass and hazing the view. Not that she was missing much. New York in November was bleak, without green leaves, grass, or multihued flowers in window boxes to alleviate the colorless tones of roads and buildings that blocked out the sky and pale warmth of the winter sun.
Considering her mood, not even sunny Cancun could cheer her up. She didn't want to pretend everything was fine. After spending two weeks at her parents' house, coddled and pampered, she'd returned home to escape her good little trouper act. She couldn't take more of their worry, how they handled her as if she were glass, always whispering around her, as if a normal tone of voice would shatter her.
What she'd needed was to be alone, to find her own way to deal with her grief and anger. She'd known leaving Matt would hurt, but she hadn't realized how much – and between the ever-present sadness and the nightmares that kept her from sleeping, she'd lost weight and had trouble concentrating. Even her students had noticed, and watched her with an irritating mix of awe and speculative curiosity.
Nothing like the notoriety of surviving a gun battle with professional assassins to improve class attendance.
Of course, everybody assumed her glassy-eyed stares and forgetfulness were because of her ordeal. Nobody – except her parents and Jared – knew that her biggest problem was a broken heart.
What a quaint phrase for this pervasive moodiness, the squeezing ache inside her, and restless emptiness. Broken implied a simple fix; a dab of glue here, and – voilà! Good as new.
If only it were that easy to mend her hurt and anger, and stitch up the tatters of her dignity. She swung constantly between tears and fury that he'd walked out of her life without so much as a backward glance.
She had really thought he would come with her, and her disappointment that he had failed her hopes cut as deeply as her grief.
With a sigh, she idly drew an unhappy face on the fogged window, then a heart. Realizing what she'd done, she frowned and rubbed the doodles away with the back of her hand.
Looking up again, she focused on the sidewalks full of people huddled in their coats, hurrying hither and yon, dashing between trucks and yellow taxicabs, rushing the Do Not Walk signal. Movement, movement … nothing ever stood still. Life hurtled onward, no matter what.
Which was exactly what she needed to do; just move on. She had a backlog of work to catch up on, and needed to finish three new designs for next spring's bridal line – and then there were all those boxes of files and computer diskettes and whatnot that Jared had sent.
True to her word, she'd taken her first steps in becoming more active in her own business. She hadn't exactly fired Jared, but had told him she didn't need him to baby her along anymore and she wanted to learn the ropes.
After his initial surprise – and resentment; guys like Jared didn't cotton well to being told they weren't needed – he'd agreed to teach her. He'd been patient, spending hours going over detailed reports and files until she thought her brain would pop from information overload.
He'd argued with her about her decision not to expand her line to nonbridal footwear, but she'd dug in and finally he'd admitted defeat.
For the first few days she'd panicked a little, uncertain if she could really do this on her own. Investments, schedules, profit and loss statements, payrolling, production timelines, catalog mock-ups … it was a bit more than she'd bargained for. She'd always been involved on some level in all of it, but mostly superficially.
Trying to absorb these new tasks more fully had kept her too busy to mope – at least during the daylight hours.
The phone rang, and she turned, considering letting the answering machine take the call. But knowing she couldn't hide away from life like this, she walked to her desk and picked up the phone – and hated how her heart pounded, still hoping to hear him on the other end.
"Lili Kavanaugh."
"Hey, Lil," said Jared, cheerfully.
Lil…
Another, deeper voice, rang in her memory: Matt's, so clear it seemed as if he were standing beside her, and she briefly closed her eyes. The first time he'd called her Lil was the night he'd kissed her for the first time.
"Lili?" Jared asked when she didn't answer.
Shaking herself free of the memories, she smiled and said, "Yeah, it's me. What's up?"
"Nothing much. Just checking up on you, like the obsessive-compulsive chump I am. How's it going?"
"I'm a mess, but I'm getting better."
Silence, then, "Have you talked to Hawkins?"
"No. And I'm not going to." Sensing the tension underlying his voice, she turned toward the window and abruptly changed the subject. "You sound upset. Did you and Olivia have another fight?"
Over the line, she heard his sigh. "I called and told her I wanted to drop by for a visit, she said it wasn't a good time,
and the next thing I knew I was shouting, and she was hanging up on me."
Biting her lip, Lili said, "Do you want a bit of advice about Olivia?"
"I dunno. Depends."
"You've been too patient. Get more aggressive, Jared; let her know you mean business. Give her an ultimatum, and if she says no to you again, don't go back. You deserve better than to have her yanking you around like this."
"Aggressive? With Olivia? Somehow I have a feeling she'd kick my ass if I tried. She's not into that caveman stuff."
"You might be surprised," Lili said.
"Huh," he said after a moment. "Maybe I ought to drive over there, and drag her into the bedroom by her hair."
Lili arched a brow. "That might be pushing it."
"So why aren't you following your own advice and calling Hawkins?" Jared asked abruptly. "Give him an ultimatum."
"I did," Lili said. "Me or the job, and he chose the job. End of story."
"If you're really that crazy about the guy, maybe you could give it a try with him anyway."
"I couldn't handle it, Jared," Lili said quietly. "Never knowing where he is or what he's doing, always worrying if he might be hurt … or worse. I got a good look at those risks he runs. I saw men shot, and die."
She had to close her eyes to hold back the images, the flash of blood, the final gasps for breath, the utter ugliness of it all.
Taking a long, steadying breath, she added, "I can't forget, and I won't ever live through that kind of fear again. If I'd stayed with Matt, pretending nothing was wrong, we would've ended up hating each other, fighting constantly, and eventually all the love would die away. I can't do that to myself, or to him."
For a long moment, Jared said nothing. "You're right. You deserve to be wonderfully, blissfully happy, Lil. I'm sorry it didn't work out."
"Me, too, Jared … me, too."
After hanging up the phone, Lili sat at her desk, staring down at the design sketches scattered across her desk.
Then her gaze settled on the phone again. Maybe she should try calling Matt. She didn't have his number, but she could call his agency and leave a message. If he was still there. What if he'd already left? He'd said she was his last assignment.
HER BODYGUARD Page 30
