by D L Lane
He skimmed his knuckles along the line of her jaw. “I listen to every word. I’m also busy, so other things take my thoughts in different directions sometimes, but that in no way means I don’t think you, or what you are saying, isn’t important. It is.” He leaned in close and whispered in that velvet-soft voice. “You are important to me, Danica. Never doubt that.”
The man had a way of melting her. “All right.”
He took her chin between his fingers and lifted. “I have to get back to work, but you be careful driving to Cedar Point.” Her fiancé placed a soft kiss to her lips, then let her go.
“I hope your afternoon goes well,” she said.
“I’ll call you later. I promise.”
“Okay. Love you.”
“I love you too, gorgeous.” He winked then turned—the hustle and bustle of the hospital swirling around him until Danica couldn’t see him any longer.
Spinning on her heel, she made her way past the nurse’s station, then stopped dead in her tracks.
Gage.
He’d come through the sliding glass doors, looking as if he were chewing on nails.
He’s upset.
Part of her wanted to go over there, find out why he was in Seattle, at that hospital, what was going on. While the other side of Danica, the grownup version that hadn’t seen him in years, told her not to be ridiculous by running to him.
The battle started. Go, don’t go. Go.
Taking that first shaky step forward, her heart pounding in her tight throat, she stopped once more when a woman came into view—long glossy sable hair, impeccably dressed, then her attention went to the profile of her face, and she knew.
Jenny.
That old familiar sense of betrayal meandered its way through her chest, turning the pasta she’d eaten sour, stomach churning, blood coursing through her veins transforming into acid.
Danica closed her eyes, willing the horrible feeling to go away, but it didn’t. There was only one thing left to do. She would leave.
Turning around, she went in the opposite direction, anguish mixing into the nasty brew of duplicity as Danica popped her sunglasses off the top of her head, putting them on her face to hide the tears that shouldn’t be present, but most definitely had begun to fall.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Haggard from no sleep, the hole of worry in her gut growing to a massive pit, Danica hopped off the couch when the doorbell rang.
“I’ll get it,” Mason said, striding out of the room.
“No. I will. It might be Gage with some news since he hasn’t called.”
Bypassing her brother-in-law, she all but ran to the front door, unlocking it and flinging the thing wide open. “Gage?”
The man’s head lifted, and his silver eyes filled with unfathomable pain locked on hers.
Every bit of blood she possessed drained from her face to her feet. She swayed before she slowly backed up, hands out in front of her as if to stop an invader. “No, no, no…”
“Danica,” he said, his voice almost hoarse.
Mason came up beside her, her sister from behind, asking, “What? What is it?”
“Don’t say it!” Danica felt as if her head had detached and was floating up, up, up.
“I’m sorry,” Gage said, stepping inside and moving forward until Danica’s back hit Breckin’s front, her sister’s arms going around her.
“Shut up, Gage!” she yelled, “don’t say another word!”
“Danica.” He reached out, placing his warm palm on her ice-cold cheek. “I don’t want to tell you this. I wish I didn’t have to. Marcus was found. I’m so sorry, but he’s dead.”
“No-o-o!” she screamed, her legs giving way, Breckin struggling until Mason and Gage took over. Mase grabbed his wife; Gage took her.
Something inside of Danica snapped, her sanity maybe, and she started pounding her fists into Gage’s chest, wailing and saying things. “You’re lying to me! Marcus isn’t dead! He isn’t!”
“I’m so sorry, Danny.” Gage held her through the thrashing, taking every blow and absorbing them. “I’m so sorry.”
“I hate you, Gage Harrison! You’ve ruined my life! Again!”
~
Danica’s house was full of people, her parents, Breckin and Mason, Mrs. Beil, who was taking care of the crying twins, Pastor Kyle and his wife, but Danny had finally quieted from the state she was in after his father came, giving her a sedative. Gage checked on her twice, relieved she was sleeping.
“Are you okay?” a grim-faced Mason asked, coming to take a seat beside him.
“I don’t know how to answer that, brother.”
“I’m sure you don’t.” Mason swiped a palm over his head. “Can you tell me what happened? To Marcus, I mean?”
“It appeared to be suicide, but we won’t know for sure until all of the evidence is gathered, and the investigation is completed.” Gage wasn’t going to say anything about possible infidelity.
“Where was he?”
“On his boat in Seattle.”
“That makes no sense at all.”
“I know. You wouldn’t think Marcus would have done something like this, but from what I saw, it sure looks as if he did. There wasn’t anything obvious that would point to foul play.”
“I just can’t wrap my mind around it.”
Gage nodded.
“I know this probably isn’t the time, and I’m sorry, but something Danica said is poking at me.”
He met his friend's gaze. “What?”
“She said you ruined her life again. What does that mean?”
He took a deep breath, then scrubbed his fingers through his hair. “I would imagine it has to do with the fact, for the second time in her life, I told her something that rocked her world.”
“What did you tell her the first time?”
Gage rubbed the pulse in the middle of his forehead. “That Jenny was pregnant and said it was my baby.”
Mason’s brows knit. “What aren’t you telling me? I get the news might have been surprising, it surprised me, but why would it have ruined her life?”
“It’s a long story, Mase. Let’s not get into that now.”
Mason clapped him on the back. “All right, brother. But we will get into it, one day.”
“We will.”
Mason stood. “I’m going to go check on my wife.”
“Go on.” As much as Gage didn’t want to leave Danica, sleeping or not, he had to, so he rose to his feet as well. “I’ve got to get a shower, catch a quick catnap, then head to the station.”
~
The rat-a-tat-tat, rat-a-tat-tat of a gun spraying bullets had people screaming and scattering in wild disarray.
“Get down!” Wood fragments and pieces of books rained around his partner as Gage tugged him back, jerking him to the floor, taking cover behind an oak table he’d overturned. It was the best he had. Gage tapped his earpiece and said quickly, “Shooter, second floor of the library, automatic AK-47!”
They’d tailed the subject on foot into the public library—not the best place to be since there were far too many civilians, but he hadn’t had a gun. Where did that one come from? Had he stashed it in there, drew them into that building for some reason? Gage didn’t get it. Nothing made sense.
The security guard who was helping people get to one of the doors was shot in the back, his body falling forward, hitting the floor face first, limbs sprawled, a crimson pool forming around him.
There was no way that man would survive.
Gage tapped his earpiece. “Civilians! They’re coming outside, take them to safety. It’s chaos in here! A security guard is down! I repeat, a guard is down!”
More bullets sprayed. More innocent people fell as Gage pulled out his weapon and started firing in the direction the shooter was, or where he thought he was. He couldn’t see the guy, just the massacre taking place as adrenaline pumped through him, all his senses sharpening, things around him slowing down into frame-by-frame pictur
es of horror.
Pow-pow-pow, pow-pow-pa-pow! His shots rang out, but Gage didn’t hit anything, not the monster in the body of a man anyway.
Tapping his com once again, Gage bellowed, “We need backup in here! It’s a blood bath!”
Pow-pow-pow, pow-pow-pow! He fired more shots, hearing in his ear, “Backup is coming, hang tight!”
Looking behind him, he glanced at the staircase going up to the second floor, then told his partner, “Lay down some cover fire, I’m going up—sneak around to the back of where I think our shooter is.”
“Don’t get dead,” Agent Rothman said, his gun poised.
Inching backward, Gage belly crawled to the steps then made his way up, being as careful as possible to head in the direction he thought the shooter hid.
Rat-a-tat-tat!
More screams rang out. More shots were fired. More, more, more of the nightmare whirled all around Gage as his blood raced through his veins, his heart pumping so hard it rattled his chest.
Rat-a-tat-tat, rat-a-tat-tat!
A woman yelled in a heart-wrenching lament, “My baby!”
It all became so much, the overwhelming sound, the horrific pain of people screaming, moaning. Gage’s heart beat so fast, sweat broke out on his forehead, and he couldn’t move quick enough, he couldn’t get to where the monster was to stop this. It was like he was walking in knee-high sand, yet he was going as fast as he could until finally, he saw the man.
Gage aimed his gun and shot.
The guy’s shoulder jerked, the gun dropped, the man spun and yanked something out of his boot—a smaller gun.
But, just as deadly, he realized an instant before the bam, bam, bam! of bullets were coming his way. He jumped behind a bookcase, waited for a second, then peeked, pulling back, looking out.
Gage no longer saw the guy.
He had to have gone out the back exit.
With gun drawn in front of him, Gage moved forward, following the trail of blood on the carpet to the door, leading out, then down the stairs.
He put on the speed again, catching up to the monster. “FBI! Freeze!”
Bam, bam, bam. Another few rounds came out of the Ruger that spun his way, one bullet grazing Gage’s shoulder, but he ignored the flames overtaking his skin, shooting back, missing as the guy ran down the last few stairs, Gage shooting again and hitting!
The guy’s body jerked forward, making him stumble out the back door.
Gage jumped past the last steps, going out the same door, taking the man down, putting his forearm along the back of the monster’s neck, his knee pressing into the man’s lower back, smashing him into the concrete.
With blood trickling down his arm and overtop of his hand Gage tapped his com, saying, “I’ve got the shooter! Back alley!”
Once the fight went out of the guy, body wilting beneath him, Gage took a breath. It’s over.
“Al Musa sends their greetings,” the shooter said, then laughed—a horrible, evil cackling.
B-O-O-M!
The impact of the blast catapulted Gage forward into a dumpster, slicing his forehead, something piercing his back like a blade. Everything rang, his ears turning into a woom, woom, woom… Then, his world went black.
Jerking up in the bed, body shaking like a piece of debris in a tsunami, a cold sweat covering him, Gage sucked in a breath. It’s just a nightmare. It’s over now, he told himself, but when the terror hit him in his sleep, it wasn’t; it was happening all over again.
Putting his feet on the floor, he ran a palm over his damp face and took three more fortifying breaths. His therapist suggested counting, but he never did, he just took his mind to other places, other things, mainly the extraordinary blue of Danica’s eyes—a tranquil sky on a cloudless day, the irises ringed in navy—and when he did, Gage calmed, his breathing returned to normal. But his life returning to anything close to normal? Well, that was a whole other story.
Chapter Forty
Before
Palm trees swayed, their fronds whispering in the breeze; the sound of the water lapped along the shore. The warmth of Marcus at her back, his arms around her, sent a sense of peace through Danica as she gazed over the balcony.
The setting sun hit the horizon.
“It’s so beautiful here,” she whispered, her head falling back to rest on her fiancé’s chest, the orange glow of the sky spreading a path across the ocean.
“You’re beautiful,” Marcus said before he let loose of her. “Come on.”
Danica turned around and looked up into his whiskey-colored eyes, then took the hand he held out for her, fingers twining with his as he led them inside, the breeze blowing the sheer curtains past them in a billow of purity.
When he stopped at the foot of the massive bed, he disentangled his hand from hers, then started undoing the buttons on his Brioni shirt.
She frowned. “What are you doing?”
“I’m taking off my shirt.”
“I see that, but why? We need to be downstairs for rehearsal in a few minutes?”
“I want to hold you in my arms, but not standing on the balcony. And I want to feel your skin on mine.” He glanced at the bed then back to her.
Marcus had a thing about wrinkles in his clothing, but his suggestion about the two of them laying together on a bed was a first.
“We're not doing anything.” Heat infused her cheeks. “Not until—”
“I know.” Shrugging the material off his shoulders, he turned, took the few steps it took to get to the desk and put his shirt over the back of the chair.
His body was cut, sculpted into lean lines, a swimmer’s physique, alabaster skin shimmering in the light with a birthmark that looked like someone swiped a small oval of bisque foundation on the left side of his rippled abdomen, by his navel. He was sexy, though nothing like— Stop it, Danica. You won’t think about Gage while you’re with Marcus. Ever!
He came to her, positioning himself behind her body. “Did you like what you saw?”
Heat raced up her chest, neck, and over her cheeks. “Marcus, I—”
“Tell me, Danica.” Zip… He’d pulled the tab on her dress down, making her shiver. “Give me the words.
“Ye-yes.”
Softly his fingertips traced up her spine, then over her shoulders, taking the material on her body and sliding it off her arms.
“Marcus, we can’t!”
“Shh…tomorrow, you will be my wife.”
“But, I’m not your wife yet.” Danica put her arms around her midsection when the garment slipped to her hips.
“You are stunning.” Marcus came around her, his gaze hungry as she stood there half undressed, her pale pink lacy bra not much of a covering the only barrier keeping her from exposure. “Please, let me see you.”
This was a whole new side to the man she’d never witnessed. Oh, he was loving, but never hungry for her. She’d wondered more than once if they would have the right type of chemistry when it came to being intimate in a way a married couple should be.
Biting her lip, Danica carefully took hold of the slouching dress, stepping out of it and tossed it on the end of the mattress. A deeper flush of embarrassment hit her skin. She was in nothing but her skimpy underwear, and her high heel flower print Prada’s—one of the many gifts Marcus had given her.
“Exquisite.” He circled like a bird of prey, his fingertip tracing a line from her shoulder to her back, to her other shoulder, before he stepped in front of her once more, taking her face between his hands. “I love you.”
Marcus kissed her then, in a way he hadn’t done before. This wasn’t a soft, sweet, reverent kiss, but a taking of her mouth with his as one of his large hands went to the back of her head, the other to her hip, then around, pulling her into him—claiming.
The few crisp chest hairs he had tickled her cleavage as his taste mixed with the wine he drank earlier exploded on her tongue.
“Marcus,” she uttered, her palm curling around the back of his head as he picked h
er up and lay her back on the bed, his body coming down on hers—hips positioned between her thighs. “I’ve waited a long time to give myself to the man I love, and I don’t—”
“We won’t,” he said, then put his mouth on the apex of her breasts, the tip of his nose skimming up to her throat, along the side of her neck. “Not until you become Mrs. Marcus Harding.” Kiss, nibble, kiss. “Then you’ll be mine in every way.”
“Marcus,” she moaned.
He flicked her earlobe with the tip of his tongue, making her shiver. “Mm…you smell so good, Danica.”
When he pressed himself into her while gently sucking on a hot-spot she didn’t know she possessed beneath her ear, chills traversed her flesh, flames shot along her spine, and Danica knew her preconceived notions about not having chemistry flew out the open balcony doors.
Scoring her nails down the muscular contours of Marcus’s shoulders, she said, “We can be late. Kiss me.”
“I am kissing you,” he said, then left a trail along the column of her throat, making her arch into the sensation.
Tap, tap, tap!
“Sis!” Breckin’s voice came from the other side of her room door. “We need to get downstairs. Everyone is waiting!”
Marcus groaned, then looked into her eyes. “To be continued.” He bent his head and caressed her mouth with his, then brushed his nose along hers. “We better go.”
Palm resting on his bare chest, she reluctantly said, “Yeah.”
Chapter Forty-One
Taking a quick peek at the time on the bottom right-hand corner of his computer, seeing 3:04 P.M., Gage tapped the com on his desk. “Dixie, I’m heading out for the rest of the day. Call if you need me for anything.”
“All right, Chief. Are you going over to the Harding place?”
“Yes.”
“I’m going to go when I finish up here, but please give Danica my condolences. My heart breaks for her and those babies.”
“Maybe you should give them when you go. I’m not sure—” Gage clamped his mouth shut before he could say he wasn’t sure she would agree to see him.
