Buying Love (Marriage of Convenience With Twins Romance)

by Faye, Amy

  No, never joke like that. Certainly not when your head's on the chopping block. Of course not. "And what's going on with your little… say, excursion on my side of the law, Maguire? They going to charge you with something?"

  "It's a little late to say that I hope they overlook it, but… I'm confident that I'll get away fine."

  "Well as far as I'm concerned, you were coerced. I can be very… coercive."

  She rolls her eyes, but I can see the smile on her face. I like it better when she smiles. Like it better than the alternative, anyways.

  Nobody talks for a while. A nurse comes in, apparently aware with their strange sorcery that I had woken, and introduces herself. She asks what I want for lunch, from a long list of unappetizing choices.

  I would rather just head down to the kitchen myself, but the pain that explodes in my side every time I put any weight down on my right side pretty much excludes that as an option.

  So instead, I give her a choice that I don't expect anything from, and whenever they get it to me, we'll see. Maybe it'll be edible, or maybe I won't be eating for the next 'several days, or maybe two weeks.'

  I'm not really sure what to do with myself any more. The day passes slow. The food is crap, which is what I expected more or less. I don't start feeling better any time soon, but I guess I didn't expect to.

  So instead, I haven't got much to do. Just a long damn day to pass with little more than a flat-screen T.V. hanging from the ceiling, showing soap operas I don't want to watch and no remote in easy reach.

  I hate having nothing to do. It reminds me of prison. Reminds me every little bit of what prison was like. Nothing to do, nowhere to be, and nowhere to go. I guess that's fine, in a sense. I don't expect anything else.

  It's not until a few long hours have passed that I run into my next problem.

  "Ah, Maguire?"

  She looks up from her lap. She might have been dozing, in which case I feel bad for waking her, but I would've done it either way, feel bad or not.

  "Sorry? What's up?"

  "I don't mean to make this too, ah, personal, but I gotta go. You don't happen to have a key, or somethin', do you?"

  She looks at me slant-ways, and then calls out for 'Danny.' Agent Ball comes in. Danny, I guess.

  "Prisoner needs to use the lavatory."

  "Sure thing," he says. Big motherfucker like that, I don't think I'm in a position to try to attempt an escape. But then I don't know that I blame him for doubting me as he follows me into the bathroom.

  I do my business and head back, but now the thought of escape has run through my mind, and I don't think it's going to be the last time.

  Going to jail was a given from the beginning of this, except for a little promise of immunity right in the beginning, and I know no lawyer signed off on that.

  Which means that from the very beginning, there was no way out of this thing without seeing a judge, at the very least. But I have to say—I don't want to go back to no God damned prison. Not even a real cushy one for rich guys.

  'Resort prison,' my ass. Give me my bike, give me long roads in front of me, and let me go. I don't want to be cooped up, regardless of how nice the damn prison they have around me is. Never mind that I have a real suspicion that they aren't all they're cracked up to be.

  But I have a strong suspicion it won't be no 'resort prison.' It'll be a big fuckin' thing and I'm not going to like it.

  And, for the next several days, that was about all I thought about. How I'm going to get out of here. The thing that upsets me, as my side stops screaming out in agony every time I lean wrong and my need for the painkillers continues to go down, is that I ain't got a plan.

  There's really no chance. I could do it on a bathroom break, maybe. But I'd have to get gone, and get gone fast. I don't have a ride out, so I'd have to steal something. I've done a lot of shit in my day, but wouldn't you know… never stole a car.

  It's not that I'm above it, but in a real hurry like running from the cops, I don't know that I would manage it. Which worries me a whole hell of a lot, frankly. I don't know if there's a way out of this for me. I can feel it tightening around my neck, like a noose, and there's not a god damn thing I can do about it.

  Even in the moment, I can feel my hands getting a little sweaty, can feel the panic starting to rise. I just want to get the hell out of here. I want to get the fuck out of here, and I want to do it now. Nobody's going to convince me to do anything else.

  Her hand reaches over and touches my arm, and suddenly I don't feel so bad any more.

  "You alright?"

  I'm anything but alright.

  "Sure."

  She knows exactly how panicked I am. I can see it right there in her eyes, but she doesn't argue with me either way. I like that. It's sweet. But sweet, in spite of my hopes, doesn't get me out of these handcuffs.

  A few minutes pass. My heart starts to feel a little more under control. "You know, Maguire?"

  "Huh?"

  "I'm sorry we got you wrapped up in this shit."

  She doesn't say anything. Her hand squeezes mine for a second, and then she lets go.

  That's about all I hoped for, so I guess, if I'm going to prison, I got something I can be happy about.

  Chapter Fifty-Nine

  MAGUIRE

  Ryan Beauchamp was never one to give up. At least, I never got that impression. Not in all the time I tracked him, not in all the time that I've spent with him, not in his official file. He's a fighter, through and through.

  But I can see it in his eyes. This time, for some reason or another, he's giving up pretty completely. Getting out of here, getting out of a long prison sentence, none of that's on his mind. Which hurts a little, I got to admit.

  There's more to it, though.

  Something's making him think that it's smarter to just let us take him in. I try to think about the future I'm going to have when this is all over with. Some day, I think, I'll be able to look back on all this and not feel anything.

  Is that what I want? I've given a God damned lot to be in the position I'm in right now, but if I could just get Ryan Beauchamp to pick his God damn head up and start acting like he's not already a dead man, I'd do it in a second.

  The time crunch had felt so big, and yet now that it's gone, everything feels strange. Why the hell am I doing any of this? Why am I so worried about him?

  He's a criminal, and I'm a federal agent. I worked my ass off to get where I am today, but all I want is just… I don't know, but I don't want to think about it. I can't afford to think about it.

  The idea's a hell of a lot more insidious than I thought, though, because now I can't kick it. How hard would it be to fix this little problem of Ryan's?

  About impossible, is what I'm thinking. I don't know of a way I could get him out of this trouble. He's got himself in deep enough that he's never gonna get himself back out again.

  At least, he won't on his own. That doesn't mean that he'll never get out, though, not by a long shot. Because someone else could get him out.

  I swallow hard at the thought. Am I seriously considering this?

  No. Of course I'm not. That would, after all, be a crime. Since I'm not a criminal, I wouldn't consider it for even a moment. Not even for Ryan Beauchamp. I'm a respected member of my work, and I do important work, keeping bad people behind bars.

  That's who I am, and that's what I do, and I would never even think of trying to break him out.

  Never, and definitely not now.

  It wouldn't be too hard, though, would it? I mean, the hardest part would be getting him out of the hospital. The handcuffs are easy. The escape is easy once you get him into a car.

  Getting across the Mexican border is pretty much all you'd need, and he's been doing that for two years. I can't imagine that he'd suddenly have trouble sneaking across now.

  But between the bed and the exit, you'd have to get past Danny, and you'd have to hope that none of the security staff happens to see him. If they see him
, you have to hope they haven't been briefed on his situation, which they almost certainly have.

  So the hard part, the hardest part by far, is getting him out of there, since it's so reliant on luck.

  But otherwise, it'd be easy.

  That is, of course, if I were to try something like that, and if I was thinking about it.

  Which I'm not doing, and I won't be doing. Because I'm a law enforcement officer, and we don't release criminals, we catch them. We don't let people go because they're… mostly good on the inside.

  We catch them because they're mostly bad on the outside.

  I tap my fingers on my leg. I don't know when I started doing it, but now it's hard to stop. I feel like I'm coming apart at the seams, here.

  Ryan's napping on the bed. I should have gone. I haven't showered in days, I've barely eaten. But I just... can't. Every time I leave, it just sets me on edge. What if something were to happen? What if he were hurt? What if—

  A thousand questions, and at the top of the list was 'how do I get past Danny?'

  I wasn't thinking about doing it, of course. I wouldn't, not for a second. Helping a known criminal to escape, that's a felony. I'm not responsible for catching that sort of person, but I know enough about the law to know, you don't do that kind of thing.

  It takes me from the department considering the option of looking the other way, to committing a big felony. So I'd be an idiot to consider trying to get Ryan past Danny, because that would make what little future I have, extremely short.

  It would make my future extremely limited, as well. It'd be, well… I'd have to go with Ryan. More or less like he wanted, I think.

  I'd have to jump the border along with him. At some point, of course, we'd both have to find places to settle down. They could be separate, but I don't speak Spanish, and I suppose, if you know someone already, you might as well stick with who you know, right?

  So, I mean, it's not that we have a future together, but we could at least stay near each other.

  If I were to break him out, which of course I wouldn't.

  But I mean, maybe we would have a future together, too? Maybe that's not out of the question? It would probably be cheaper to get one house than two, for example. That would be, I think, totally reasonable. We could be like, room mates.

  I mean, one of us could handle that. I don't know if Ryan could keep his hands off me, and I guess I wouldn't mind if that happened, every so often.

  But I mean, I'm not really looking forward to it, or anything.

  And that's only if I break him out, which I won't.

  Or maybe, you know, we'll see how things go. Maybe we live together, maybe there's some kind of ongoing relationship, even.

  Maybe we get married. I can't imagine that it's too hard to get married, even in Mexico. Maybe we have a couple of kids. Maybe Ryan teaches them to ride, maybe he teaches them how to shoot. Maybe we have a little family, down there.

  Away from all the trouble. I don't know. That would all be in the future, and I'm not thinking about it at all.

  Because first, I'd have to break him out of this hospital, and out of Federal custody, and that would be a Federal crime. I would be a fugitive from the law, and I'd be throwing away a very promising career as a law enforcement agent.

  But then again, I guess I am thinking about it, because I just found myself wondering whether or not Brian still has those handcuff keys or not, or maybe Logan does as well.

  But the handcuffs were always the easy part, because if I'm going to do it—and I'm going to, I know—then I'm still going to have to get him past Danny.

  I don't know how I'm going to do it, not yet. But I have to figure out a plan, and I don't have a lot of time or many resources. So I'd better figure it out in a God damned hurry, because otherwise I'm pretty much out of luck.

  Chapter Sixty

  RYAN

  I'm starting to really feel like Agent Ball and I have something going. He gets me. After all, I don't want to be talked to while I'm in the bathroom, and he doesn't talk to me. Not really outside the bathroom, either.

  It's really a perfect setup. I think we could be friends. The past few days, we've grown very close. Specifically, I learned his first name from the time that Maguire called him by it, and not a whole hell of a lot else, which is exactly as close as I was to a lot of the guys in the club.

  Hell of a lot of the guys back in Ohio, let me tell you. Knowing a guy's first name, might as well be best friends now. So it's not that surprising to me when I don't really want to kill the guy.

  But if I have to, to get out of here, well, I guess that's how it's going to be.

  Someone must be thinking the same thing as I am. I thought Logan was already making a break for the Mexican border when he left, frankly. It wouldn't surprise me if he's thinking about how to get me out of here.

  Of course, Maguire is more resistant to my charms than I might have expected under normal circumstances. But even still, I have a sneaking suspicion that under that delicious hard shell she's got, there's a little soft spot in there.

  Which means she might be thinking it, too. Or, she might be thinking about any number of other things. I mean, it's a whole new era for women in the workforce. They can do and say just about whatever they like, and far be it from me to assume.

  But she's been thinking about something awful damn hard the past couple of days, as I start recovering more and more. She looks a lot better, now. More put-together. With me sleeping through the night, I don't know for sure, but I think she's been going home after I fall asleep.

  It's good for her. Good for me, too, in a sense. She smells like her again. The way I'm used to her smelling. Her hair looks nice. It looked great before, but now, when it's clean and she's had a chance to run a brush through it… it looks like hers.

  I don't know how to open up the conversation, though. They tell me Brian's out of the hospital, up in Tucson. Don't know how long he'll be in getting here, but I think he's supposed to be coming to visit.

  That'll be a good time to get me the hell out of here, probably. With four of us—excuse me, three of us, since there's no reason to be sure that Sara would join me—it can't be that hard, can it?

  Then again, it's just going to be putting my brothers in more danger, and I'm not going to do that. Not again. Not after what happened. Not after how bad Brian got messed up. I can't see that happening again, no matter what. It's off the table.

  I lay my head back. I'll think of something, I'm sure. It's just a matter of time until something comes along and shows me a solution to my problem, but until then…

  Brian comes in. He's lost weight. The guy was already thin, and now he's downright skeletal. I don't know what they've been feeding him over there, except that it's sure as hell not enough.

  Still, he smiles. I know a lot of guys get out of shit like that, and they can't get over it. It sticks with them, the rest of their natural lives. I don't want that for Brian. Don't want it for Logan, either. I swallow hard.

  I don't have long to get the hell out of here. Not long at all. Soon, very soon now, they're going to tell me to get the hell out of this hospital, and I'm going up the river.

  Straight up the river to D.C. where they'll charge me, try me, and sentence me to life in a hole in the ground. Especially killing some big A.T.F. guy, they're going to put me in a hole so deep I forget what the sun is. But I did what I had to do.

  I hope nobody sees my face as I try to get used to the idea of my new home, what I'm going to have to get used to over the next few years. The next several years, in fact. Probably the rest of my life, but I never figured on living that long in the first place.

  I never had anything to live for, except my brothers, and if I could launch them off like a damn rocket then that would be good enough for me. Fizzle out after that.

  I just can't shake the hurting feeling that it all gives me. I don't like it one damn bit, and I want it to stop. But it's not going to, not ever.

  So i
nstead, I sleep. I go to sleep early that night. I like to stay up late, because at least then there's something on the one channel I get on the flat-screen. But I'm feeling pretty down, and with feeling pretty down is feeling pretty damn tired, and I just want to sleep.

  I wake in the night, though. Something moves in the bed. Shakes me awake. A hand. The hand's attached to a woman. Maguire leans in and whispers into my ear.

  "You want to get out of here?"

  I nod my head.

  "Come on."

  She sticks a key into my cuffs and undoes them. Easy as that. I'd imagined it would be harder, but I guess she's a cop, and that's how it goes sometimes.

  My wrists hurt. They always hurt more, somehow, after the cuffs come off. As if now that I've got a little freedom, my wrists are going to make me suffer for putting them through that kind of hassle.

  Some clothes are folded at the foot of the bed. They look like mine, more or less. I fit them on quickly and quietly. I don't know what's going on, but I'm not going to ask questions.

  She beckons me over to the door. I follow. Not loud, but I could be quieter. Every step makes me wince. I should be damn quieter, but I just… can't. The boots keep making noise on the floor, no matter what I do.

  Danny Ball's asleep in a chair outside. He doesn't move as we walk by. I try to keep my steps extra quiet, and I don't wake him up. Thankfully for me, at least. I don't know how it's going to affect his career, if we get out of here.

  But I know how it's going to affect mine.

  When we've turned the corner, Maguire stops sneaking so much. We straighten up. I don't have a mirror, but I'd say we almost look like two perfectly normal people walking through a hospital. Sure, it's late, but I have to hope we can get out of here.

  Nobody stops us. I expected someone to. I've been stopped just visiting hospitals before by over-zealous nurses who think it's their damn job to play security. But this time, when I'm breaking out of a prison bed…

  Now's the time that they've decided that it's my business whether or not I walk out of the place.