by Jane Graves
“Yes,” she said, relaxing against him. “Much, much better.”
“Okay. Here’s another place to add to the balcony and the shower. A hospital bed.”
“You’re in no condition for hot sex.”
“You’re right. I’m incapacitated. I’d be totally at your mercy.”
“Are you trying to turn me on?”
“Is it working?”
“Yes.”
“Then I’m trying.”
Suddenly the door opened and a quick glance told Dave that the DeMarco contingent had arrived. Lisa instantly leapt up and moved away from him to sit on the edge of the bed. Too late. Judging from the looks on his brothers’ faces, they’d both gotten an eyeful.
Alex strode into the room first, walking right up to Dave’s bed, looking, as usual, as if he was ready to take command of any situation that needed commanding.
“We were stuck at Love Field,” he said. “They had a fucking security lockdown thirty minutes before our flight was supposed to leave. We called ahead to the hospital, and all some idiot here could tell us was that you were in surgery.”
“Nice to see you, too, Alex.”
“Are you all right?”
“Yeah. I’m fine.”
“You don’t look fine.”
“Thanks, big brother. I appreciate that. Got flowers for me, too?”
“Leg wound?”
“Thigh. The bullet’s out. I’m okay.”
“Hell of a lot of blood vessels there. Christ, you could be dead right now. Any permanent damage?”
“The doctors say no.”
Alex let out a harsh breath. “Good God, you had us worried. For a while there we had no idea what was going on.”
“Will you lighten up? I told you I’m fine.”
“I talked to the customs agents in Brownsville. They’ve got the guy locked up. What the hell happened down there?”
“I’ll tell you all about it later.” Dave turned to Lisa. “Alex, John, this is—”
“Lisa Merrick,” Alex said, his expression of relief slowly morphing into a stoic glare. “You’re the one.”
She blinked with surprise. “What?”
“You’re the one who called Dave in the middle of the night and dragged him to Mexico. Got him arrested on drug charges. And now he ends up getting shot?”
Dave felt a flash of foreboding. “Alex—”
“What the hell happened down there to make my brother end up in a fucking hospital?”
Lisa’s eyes widened. “W-we had a little trouble on our way out of Santa Rios.”
“A little trouble?” He pointed at Dave. “You call this a little trouble? Dave goes down there to help you and this is what he gets?”
“Alex!”
“Look at what you’ve done! You almost got him killed!” Lisa opened her mouth, but no words came out. She got up from the bed.
“Lisa, don’t!” Dave held out his hand. “Come back!”
“No, Dave. No. I’ve . . . I’ve got to get out of here.”
Dave reached for her, but she slipped away, then side-stepped Alex and John.
“Lisa!” Dave shouted. “Lisa!”
She yanked open the door and left the room, closing it behind her.
Dave whipped around to face Alex. “What in the hell was that all about?”
“You’re lying here with a bullet wound, and you have to ask me that?”
“Go get her!” Dave shouted.
“No! I told you before. She’s bad news! You don’t want—”
“Alex,” Dave said, his eyes narrowing dangerously, “don’t you ever again, in this lifetime or the next, try to tell me what I want, because you don’t have a fucking clue. Do you understand?”
Alex held up his palm. “Look, Dave. I know you’ve been through a lot here. You’re just not thinking straight, you know?”
“I’m not thinking straight? What kind of patronizing asshole of a thing is that to say?”
“I’m just trying to show you how misguided—”
“Alex!” John said.
Alex whipped around. “What?”
“Was your head up your ass when we walked into this room?”
“What?”
“Haven’t you been listening? Can’t you see he’s in love with her?”
Alex blinked with surprise. “Huh?”
John made a scoffing noise. “Jeez. I thought I was a moron about this kind of thing. Looks like you’ve got me beat by a mile.”
Alex turned back to Dave. “In love?”
Dave pointed at the door. “Alex, I’m warning you. If you don’t go out there and bring her back in here right now, I’m getting out of this bed and tearing you in half. Now go!”
chapter twenty-five
Lisa sat in a waiting room chair, her stomach tied in knots, Alex’s words still echoing through her mind. It was as if he’d verbalized all the recriminations she’d been heaping on herself for the past several hours, and she just hadn’t been able to stand it.
She heard footsteps. Looking up, she saw Alex coming down the hall, and her heart suddenly hammered her chest. No. She couldn’t hear any more. She just couldn’t. She rose from her chair.
“Lisa!”
As she started to walk away, he jogged after her, catching her arm. “Lisa. Wait. Don’t go.”
She spun around and yanked her arm loose, staring at him hotly. “What do you want?”
“Dave wants you to come back.”
“Hard to do with his badass brother blocking the door.”
“I’m sorry,” he said, clearly choking on the words. “I’m sorry I said those things to you.”
“No, you’re not. You’re just sorry you pissed Dave off.”
Alex shoved his hands into his pockets and looked away. “Yeah, I’m not too happy about that, either.”
“Cut out the phony apologies. Dave’s not here. Go ahead. Tell me what you really think of me.”
Alex let out a disgusted sigh, looking at the floor, at the window, at the wall, anywhere but at Lisa. “Oh, hell, I don’t know! I don’t even know you! All I know is that Dave went to help you and ended up almost getting killed. What would you think if you were me?”
“I don’t know,” she said, her voice escalating. “I don’t know what I’d think! All I can tell you is that the most horrendous moments of my life were spent on that plane, praying to God I could get him to a hospital fast enough to save his life. Dave has done things for me—” She felt herself choking up, and she swallowed her tears. “He’s been there for me in ways you can’t possibly imagine, and if I could go back and take that bullet for him I’d do it in a second, because there isn’t anything— anything—I wouldn’t do for him!”
Lisa crossed her arms and looked away, hating the feeling of trying to defend herself one more time. Would there be a time in her life when she didn’t have to do that? Ever?
They stood there a long time, seemingly at an impasse. Lisa knew the only thing that kept either of them from walking away was the tenuous connection they shared because of the one person they both loved.
Alex drew in a long breath and let it out slowly. “I watch out for my family, Lisa. Sometimes . . . Sometimes I get a little carried away. I’m sorry.” He paused. “And I mean that.”
Lisa tried like hell to stay mad at him, but she couldn’t. The very idea that he cared so much for Dave, even if he expressed it all wrong, was something that made her heart turn to mush.
“Look,” Alex said. “I know right now that you’d just as soon spit on me as look at me, but still I’m asking you. . . .” He held out his hands. “Have a little pity, will you? If you don’t go back into that room, there’s no telling what Dave’s going to do to me. I’ve had my nose broken once. I don’t care to have it broken again.”
Lisa rubbed the back of her neck, looking down the hall leading to Dave’s room. An elevator pinged, and she heard the sound of a gurney being rolled down the tile hallway.
“It seems h
e’s in love with you,” Alex said.
Lisa turned back. “He told you that?”
“No. John told me that. It appears to be obvious to everyone but me.”
Lisa felt a swirl of longing that she instantly shoved aside. “Here’s some good news for you, Alex. Dave isn’t really in love with me. He just thinks he is.”
Alex shook his head. “No. Now, you’re wrong about that.”
“What?”
“Dave doesn’t just think anything. He knows. He’s been that way since he was a kid. He’s calm, sensible, and the vast majority of the time . . .” Alex sighed. “He’s right.”
No. This situation had been unique. Explosive. Emotional. And once everyday life encroached again, things could easily change.
“Go back to him,” Alex said. “He wants you there. And that means I want you there.”
In that moment, Lisa realized that Alex didn’t have to completely understand why Dave was doing something to support the fact that he was doing it. And she thought maybe that was the most loving thing of all.
Together they turned and walked back down the hall. She came into Dave’s room. He gave her a look of relief and held out his hand. “Come here.”
She walked back to his bedside. He tugged on her hand, easing her down to sit next to him.
“You two,” Dave said, pointing to his brothers. “Out.”
“We’ll call the rest of the family,” John said. “Let them know what’s going on. We’ll be back in a little while.”
They left the room, and as soon as the door closed behind them Dave turned to Lisa. “Did he apologize?”
“Yes.”
“Did he mean it?”
“Yes. I think he did.”
“He damned well better have.”
But it didn’t matter what Alex had said or whether he was sincere or not. Lisa still couldn’t help feeling self-conscious, as if she’d gotten stuck in the middle of someplace she just didn’t belong.
“I told you how Alex flies off sometimes,” Dave said. “But he always comes to his senses.”
“He was just defending you. You should be glad about that.”
“I might be, if I wasn’t on the verge of decking him.”
No matter how much Dave went on, still she could see just how much he and his brothers loved one another. She could sense it in every move they made, every word they spoke. And it made her feel even more like an outsider looking in.
“I want you to come back to Tolosa with me,” Dave said.
Her heart was suddenly beating rapid-fire. “What?”
“We have to see where we go from here. We can’t do that when we’re four hundred miles apart.”
“But I can’t . . . I can’t just leave my job—”
“There are aviation companies in Tolosa.”
“Yes. I could work anywhere. But it’s not just that—”
“Then what is it?”
Dave didn’t know what he was doing. He was acting on emotion, just as he had been these past several days. And she’d been doing the same thing. No matter what terms she and Alex might have come to, she was never going to forget that look he’d given her earlier. The look that said: What in the hell have you done to him? Get out. You don’t belong here. She was just so afraid that sooner or later Dave was going to come to that same conclusion.
“You need somebody . . .” She turned away. “Somebody who can be a mother for Ashley.”
“Yeah. We are a package deal.”
“Okay,” she said on a shaky breath. “Let’s talk about that. I don’t clean house worth a damn. I don’t cook. I don’t even know how to bake cookies unless I slice them off a roll, and even then I usually burn them. I don’t know how to braid hair. Little girls like Ashley have to have their hair braided, right?”
“It’s not terribly hard to learn.”
“Symbolism, Dave. Go with me here, will you?” She let out a harsh breath. “Don’t you get it? All that stuff isn’t me.”
“It could be.”
“Well, maybe I don’t want it to be. If we keep on with this, I’m afraid that someday you’re going to want more from me than I’m willing to give. And then where will we be? Parenthood ties you down. Do I have to tell you that? And for that matter, so does marriage. I don’t want anything to keep me from flying. It’s everything I ever dreamed of.”
Dave looked at her with a knowing expression, as if he could see right inside her. “Is it really everything you’ve ever dreamed of?”
Lisa froze. Of course it was. It had been the number one goal in her life, the thing she loved more than anything else.
But suddenly she knew it wasn’t enough.
Flying wasn’t everything she’d ever dreamed of. For a long time she’d told herself it was, but that wasn’t true. Not even close. In the past week, she’d realized that there were other hopes and dreams inside her that she’d refused to acknowledge because she was so afraid of their never coming true.
“You need to fly,” Dave said. “I know that. But when you come down to earth again, you need a place to come home to, where there’s somebody waiting for you.” He squeezed her hand. “Somebody who loves you.”
Lisa couldn’t believe what was happening here. They weren’t in the middle of a desperate situation. Dave wasn’t hanging in the balance between life and death. He wasn’t in a state where blood loss was making him loopy.
This was the real thing. He loved her.
All at once she realized that being in that cockpit wasn’t freedom. It was safe, yes. She had complete control there, and nobody on earth could hurt her. But what a lonely, barren existence, when she had nothing else. She’d never kept it in perspective for what it was—an exciting profession that she enjoyed beyond measure. Instead, she’d made flying her life when it was really the place where she’d gone to run from life. Dave was right. What good did it do to go up in the clouds when there was nothing for her when she came back to earth?
But could she ever be the woman he needed? His daughter needed? No matter how much she wanted to be, the question was: Could she?
“What I told you a minute ago,” she said. “It wasn’t quite true.”
“What’s that?”
Her voice started to tremble. “I told you that if we kept on like this, someday you’d expect more out of me than I was willing to give you. That wasn’t true. Not even close.” She took a deep breath, tears filling her eyes. She looked away for a moment, hoping she wasn’t going to cry.
“I’m willing to give you everything, Dave. My whole life. Everything. I love you. I’ve loved you for so long I don’t remember a time when I didn’t.” She paused. “I’m just so afraid that everything I’ve got to give you won’t be enough.”
He pulled her into his arms. “Oh, baby, you have no idea how wrong you are about that.”
“Are you sure?”
“A minute ago I told you that I wanted you to come to Tolosa because I wanted to see where we go from here. Actually, I already know where we go from here.” He leaned away and took her face in his hands. “I want you to marry me.”
Lisa just stared at him. “Y-You don’t know what you’re saying.”
“I know quite well what I’m saying. I was shot in the leg, not in the head.”
“This is so sudden—”
“Is it really?” His voice softened. “I’ve loved you for a very long time, Lisa. And you feel the same about me.”
She stared into those dark eyes, and suddenly she couldn’t speak anything but the truth. “Yes.”
“Then you’ll marry me?”
Lisa closed her eyes, suddenly feeling as if she were soaring straight up into the clouds. She opened her mouth to respond, but she felt so overwhelmed by it all that she couldn’t speak.
“Just say it, Lisa. Say the word I want to hear.”
He stared at her expectantly, but his gaze said he knew without a doubt what her answer was going to be.
She did, too.
�
��Yes,” she whispered. “Yes.”
He smiled at her, a broad, radiant smile that took her breath away. “When will you come to Tolosa?”
“Oh, God, I don’t know. . . .”
“One week?”
“That’s fast.”
“Not fast enough,” Dave said.
“I suppose I’ll meet the rest of your family then.”
“Yes.”
“And Ashley.”
“Yes.”
She took a deep, shaky breath. “Is it possible to be ecstatic and terrified all at the same time?”
He smiled. “You’ll be fine, Lisa. Trust me. You’ll be just fine.”
chapter twenty-six
The next evening, Adam lay on one of the double beds in a Monterrey hotel room, his head propped up on a pillow, staring into the darkness. He’d flipped out the light at ten-thirty, but now, forty-five minutes later, he still lay awake. Gabrio was sprawled on his stomach on the other bed. He’d probably fallen asleep the minute his head hit the pillow.
At least one of them could sleep.
Not that it didn’t feel good to be out of the hospital. Adam’s wound still ached after the surgery and he’d have to wear a sling for a couple of weeks, but eventually he’d be good as new. Dave and Lisa had made it out of Mexico with Robert in tow. It had been touch and go, but they were safe and Robert was in jail. Adam’s attorney friend assured him he’d have a nonimmigrant visa for Gabrio by tomorrow afternoon, and then the two of them would be flying back to San Antonio. Everything was taken care of, but still Adam felt restless. Edgy.
All he could think about was saying good-bye to Sera. Because she’d insisted on staying in Monterrey until she saw him safely onto the plane, she was in the room next door, undoubtedly asleep by now. After tomorrow, he might never see her again.
“Hey, man. You still awake?”
Adam was surprised to hear Gabrio’s voice in the darkness.
“Yeah,” Adam said. “You, too?”
In the dim moonlight he saw the kid turn over, then tuck his arm behind his head. “What time are we flying out tomorrow?”
“Four-thirty.”
“Never been on a big plane like that before.”
