Defender

by Diana Palmer

  “Isabel!” His voice could have been heard all the way to the middle of Nassau.

  She turned, and looked, and there he was. There Mandy was. They’d come down here to look for her. He had to care, just a little!

  She stopped in midthought because he gathered her up in his arms and he was kissing her as if he were going away to war and might never see her again. His arms hurt her, and she didn’t care. His mouth hurt hers. She didn’t care. She held on for dear life and kissed him back, her tears mingling with his as the sun set.

  Mandy just watched, secure in the knowledge that her baby girl was alive, that they didn’t have to go home and plan a funeral, that they didn’t have to tell Merrie something that would break her heart. However it had happened, Sari was alive. She was alive!

  “Paul…” Sari tried to speak.

  “I love you,” he ground out against her mouth. “I don’t give a damn if you’re worth two hundred million dollars. I am never leaving…you…again…as long…as I live!” he said between desperate kisses.

  Sari just melted. “I love you, too, Paul,” she whispered when he gave her a chance to catch her breath.

  He smiled sheepishly. “You do? After all I’ve done?”

  She clung to his hard neck as he held her in his arms, suspended off the ground. “I understood.”

  “You always did. I was such an idiot.” He drew in a long breath and kissed her again, but more gently this time. “Oh, God, we were coming back to plan a funeral, and here you are, wet and tired and alive. Alive!”

  She couldn’t wrap her mind around what he was saying. “Plan a funeral?”

  “One of the bodies had red hair,” he explained heavily. “I wouldn’t let Mandy look, but I had to. It was bad. I couldn’t really identify her, but she had red hair…”

  “Oh, the poor thing,” Sari said, wincing. “She was with our group. She’d just lost her husband, and she went on the tour to try and keep her mind off her loss.” She managed a sad smile. “She’ll be with him, now.”

  “You’re with me now,” he whispered, searching her eyes. “Oh, God, honey, I’ll never leave you again. Never, as long as there’s a breath in my body!”

  She snuggled close, burying her face in his throat, where the pulse beat madly.

  Mandy came to join them, reaching up to smooth Sari’s hair. “Thank God miracles still happen,” she told the younger woman. “We were terrified that we’d lost you.”

  Sari smiled at her from the shelter of Paul’s arms. “I was terrified that we’d all die,” she said. “I’ll tell you about it later. It was the worst thing I’ve ever seen. The others were swept right off the deck of the boat. Then the boat went down. There wasn’t a life jacket among us. They drifted off when the boat sank. We weren’t wearing them, idiots that we were. We treaded water, waiting to drown. There was a sailboat. It saw what happened and sent out a lifeboat for us. I owe that captain my life. We all do.”

  “We’ll make sure we do something for him,” Paul said softly.

  “We’ll buy him a bigger boat, is what we’ll do.” Mandy chuckled.

  “Not a bad idea,” Sari said with a mischievous grin. She searched Paul’s dark, soft eyes. “A much bigger boat.”

  * * *

  Sari put on a pair of pajamas she’d purchased from the gift shop downstairs after a long, warm bath, while Paul dealt with the aftermath of the trip to Newport. He found out the name of the policeman who’d worked the rescue and requested a call from him, which came promptly. He apologized for the mistaken identification, but added that they’d found the woman they were looking for back in Nassau. The policeman was happy for Paul. And Paul decided that he was going to make sure the policeman and his family had a big Christmas present from Santa that year. Sari came into his room as he was finishing up the call. She and Mandy had moved into the big bedroom off the main sitting room of the penthouse suite. Paul took the smaller room. Sari perched on his bed, smiling at the picture he made in black silk pajama bottoms, with his broad, muscular hair-roughened chest bare.

  “Just like old times, huh, honey?” he teased.

  “Not quite.” She searched his eyes. “Everything’s changed. So what now?”

  He was having second thoughts again, she knew it. He had a worried, harassed expression.

  She wasn’t having any more of that pride thing. She got up and locked both doors, walked back toward the bed and shed her pajama top.

  Paul, predictably, reacted like any man who’d gone without sex for years. He fell on her like a starving lion.

  “Oh,” she gasped, arching off the bed as he worked his way down her now-nude body with his mouth.

  “Didn’t know guys did that to women?” he teased huskily. “You noob.”

  She gasped again. “All I ever knew was…what you taught me!” she protested.

  He stilled and lifted his head. “What?”

  “Daddy never let us date…”

  “You’ve worked for the DA’s office for months, out of Daddy’s reach,” he said. “What about that other lawyer Mandy said you dated?”

  “The only man who ever touched me in any intimate way was you,” she said simply. Tears stung her eyes as she met his. “How could I have done anything with someone else, when I loved you from the time I graduated high school?”

  His eyes closed. He shivered. “I didn’t realize.” He drew in a breath and bent again to her soft, hungry body. “Isabel, I’m still not sure this is a good idea.”

  “It’s a great idea.” She arched up. “Oh, that feels good!”

  He chuckled at her wide-eyed enthusiasm. “Okay. I think I still have something to use in my wallet.”

  “Don’t you dare.”

  He scowled as he looked down into her eyes. “What?”

  “Don’t. You. Dare.” She enunciated every single word. “I’m not losing you again. No more noble sacrifices because I’m rich. No more running away because you think people will accuse you of being a gold digger. No more, Paul.”

  He searched for words. “We could have an affair and get it out of our systems,” he began.

  She reached up and drew his body down on hers, smoothing her long legs around his with intent. “One thing I have learned about you,” she whispered into his mouth as she undulated sensually under him. “You’re as conventional as a short haircut. If I’m pregnant, you’re not going anywhere.”

  “But, we…” He gasped. She moved and he gasped again.

  “We…?” she teased breathlessly.

  “The hell with it,” he ground out. “I haven’t had sex in so long, I’m not sure I remember how!”

  He was moving now, touching and brushing, and making her feel sensations she’d never felt in her whole life. She shuddered and shuddered again as he found her with his hands, exploring, discovering. She bit her lip as one exploration went deeper.

  “It’s all right, honey,” he whispered. “It won’t hurt for long, okay?”

  “Okay.” She bit her lip harder, but the pain was gone suddenly as he touched a place that made her whole body tense and arch and shiver.

  “There?” he whispered. “Yes. Right there!”

  She was barely aware of anything except her own sensuality as he brought her to one peak after another. Finally, when she was almost out of her mind with the tension, he went into her with one long, smooth motion of his hips and her eyes flew open in wonder.

  “That’s how it feels,” he whispered, smiling through the tension. “Lift up. Let me watch. Let me see…” His eyes closed and his face clenched, mirroring her tortured expression as his hips began to move down with a hard, quick, deep motion. “Sweet,” he ground out. “Sweet…sweet…oh, God, so…sweet!”

  She felt him lose control. But it was all right, because she’d already gone up so high that she barel
y registered the hot throb of him inside her before the tension finally snapped and he cried out in his ecstasy.

  She cradled him on top of her as he shuddered and shuddered. She smiled with a new knowledge of men and lovemaking that felt like the sun bursting inside her.

  She kissed his shoulder, noting the scar that ran across it where a bullet had made a path long ago. She kissed that, too.

  “Now try to leave me,” she murmured drowsily.

  “Not after that, honey.” He chuckled wearily. “I’d crawl to you on my knees to feel that surge of pleasure again, and that’s no joke. Never like that, Isabel,” he added, lifting his head to look down into her soft blue eyes. “Never in my whole life.”

  She touched his hard face, traced the chiseled mouth, the lips that were swollen from the long contact with hers. “I love you.”

  “Yes.” He bent and brushed his mouth over her eyes. “And I love you. We’ll deal with it. But you’re marrying me the minute I can get a license,” he added firmly. “I’m Italian,” he told her. “We do things right. Even the worst people in my family got married before the kids came along.”

  She smiled lazily and moved, loving the sensations she felt, because he was still deep in her body. “I love kids.”

  “Me, too.” He lifted his hips and pushed down softly. “Besides,” he whispered as he moved from side to side and felt her body shiver, “making them is a hell of a lot of fun.”

  “Oh…yes!” she whispered shakily. She didn’t say anything else for a very long time.

  * * *

  They flew back to the States the next day. Paul never let go of Isabel’s hand, not even once. Mandy knew what was going on, because they were inseparable as soon as they came out of Paul’s room.

  “Now, don’t look at me like that,” Paul groaned when Mandy arched her eyebrows at them. “I’ll get a marriage license today. I swear.”

  Mandy just burst out laughing and hugged them both.

  The bodyguards were with the car when it came to pick them up at the airport in San Antonio.

  “Merrie? How is she?” Paul asked when he saw them.

  “She’s at the house with two other guys from our unit,” the tall one said immediately. “There have been some developments in the past day,” he added. “We’ll fill you in on the way back to the house.”

  “Oh, dear,” Sari said worriedly.

  “It’s not all bad,” the broader one assured her when they were in the car and leaving San Antonio for Jacobsville. “Morris confessed to taking the contract. But he said he couldn’t do it,” he added, smiling at Sari. “He’d been around you and Merrie too long to take your lives. He’s turning state’s evidence. Well, as much as he can. You see, there’s a second shooter.”

  “What?” Sari and Paul burst out together.

  “Yeah,” the taller one said heavily. “Morris said Leeds told him that he’d hired somebody else to do Merrie, somebody special. He figured that Merrie, being the youngest, was Grayling’s favorite.”

  “Oh, my God,” Sari gasped.

  “We’ll handle it,” Paul said, pulling her close. “Don’t panic.”

  “Grier’s on it,” the tall one told them. “He still has contacts who work as independent contractors and do sniping in black ops. Garon Grier got in touch with one of his old teammates who now heads HRT and asked about men who were kicked from the sniper program for certain reasons.”

  “The HRT. Oh, God!” Paul burst out.

  “What?” Sari asked.

  “I put in an application…well, I’m pulling it, right now.” He pulled out his cell phone and made a call. He was grinning when he hung up. “They’re sorry I’m not going to apply. But they sent congratulations anyway.”

  “Congratulations?” the tall bodyguard asked.

  “Yeah,” Paul said, looking down at Sari with his heart in his eyes. “I’m marrying Miss Millionaire here.” He looked back up. “And no bull about how I’ll never have to work another day. I’m not giving up my job. I’ll just be the head of the household with the lesser income,” he added, and mischief made his eyes glimmer as he looked at Sari.

  She laughed and pressed close. “Nobody would ever think you were a gold digger.”

  “Damned straight,” the tall one returned, smiling. “He’s got too much pride.”

  Paul smiled back at him.

  “You could give it all to Dandy, Sari,” Mandy suggested, tongue in cheek.

  “Who’s Dandy?” the broad one asked.

  Paul laughed. “He’s a retired racehorse who lives in the stable. Thirty years old and swaybacked. Gosh, he could have all-gold feeding troughs and fourteen-karat hooves if you gave your fortune to him.”

  “What a story that would make,” Mandy agreed.

  Sari cocked her head and pursed her lips. “I’ve got some ideas. But they’ll wait. Right now, I just want to go home!”

  SEVENTEEN

  Merrie hugged Sari. “Oh, I’m so relieved!” she said. She glared at Paul and Mandy. “Mandy left me a note that you were in a hurricane in the Bahamas and the two of them were going to look for you. Then they never even called! I tried, but all the lines were busy. I never could get anybody to answer me!”

  “We found a drowning victim that we thought was Isabel,” Paul said softly. “It wasn’t her, but we were too torn up to talk to you. And we didn’t want to do it over the phone.”

  “Oh, gosh!” Merrie let go of Sari and hugged him. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

  He hugged her back. “We found Isabel coming off a sailboat with some other survivors when we got back to Nassau. It was a pretty intense reunion.” He actually blushed.

  Sari looked wicked. “Yes, it was extremely intense. And now he has to marry me.” She blushed, too.

  “Nobody’s dragging me to any altar,” Paul commented drily. “I’m running there, as fast as I can.”

  “You can be my maid of honor,” Sari told her sister, who was gasping and crying and hugging them.

  “But you’ll need a dress,” Mandy began.

  “I’ll get something very simple. We’ll have a minister perform the ceremony here, to keep the press out. We can’t have a big society wedding,” Sari added. “Not only because Merrie’s in the crosshairs, but because of Daddy. We don’t want a circus.”

  Paul agreed. He didn’t add that there would also be a danger of the contract killer finding a way in through florists or caterers if there was a public ceremony. “We’ll be just as married,” he promised Sari. “But you have to have a white gown with a veil, honey. At least that.”

  “I know the owner of a little boutique right here in Jacobsville,” Sari said. “Marcella. She does beautiful work.”

  “We’re getting married day after tomorrow,” Paul informed her. “How quick can she sew?”

  Sari pulled out her cell phone. “Let’s find out.”

  * * *

  Luckily, Marcella had a gown in Sari’s size that had been returned by a customer who changed her mind two days from her wedding. It was beautiful and it fit like a dream. So they were married, by Jake Blair, at the Grayling estate, with Merrie and Mandy; the Grier brothers and their families; Jon Blackhawk and his brother, McKuen Kilraven, and their families; and Blake Kemp and Violet; Glory Ramirez and Rodrigo; and Tera, Mr. Kemp’s paralegal, for witnesses.

  It was a short, beautiful ceremony. Paul lifted Sari’s veil and smiled before he bent and kissed her softly in front of the whole crowd. Showers of confetti followed them back down the aisle, on the way to a huge reception in the house itself. Of course, there had been bodyguards every inch of the way. One of the guests was a longtime friend of Merrie’s, Randall Colter, who’d been in town on business when he heard about the wedding and called Merrie for an invitation.

  Randall had a s
tepbrother named Ren who lived on a huge ranch in Wyoming. Ren oversaw a Fortune 500 company. He was wealthy and lived alone, and he had state-of-the-art surveillance and a dozen former mercs as security guards. Merrie would not only be safe up there, but if she took the corporate jet, nobody would know she was gone and she couldn’t be traced easily.

  Paul and Sari thought it was a good idea. Merrie was hesitant. She’d heard too much about Ren to feel comfortable with him, and she thought Randall was lying when he said she’d be welcome. But Randall convinced her. The Colters’ housekeeper, Delsey, would treat her like a relative, he said, and Ren wasn’t home much, anyway. He traveled a lot on business.

  They convinced Merrie to go. Meanwhile, Paul ramped up the investigation into Darwin Grayling’s illegal enterprises and went back to work after a feverish three-day honeymoon in Galveston, during which he and Sari saw very little outside their hotel room.

  * * *

  “I want to talk to Timothy Leeds,” Paul told Jon Blackhawk.

  “He’s in custody at San Antonio PD,” Jon said. “I’ll phone Lieutenant Rick Marquez and have him arrange it.” He paused. “Why?”

  “He hired someone else to kill Merrie,” Paul said heavily, noting the other man’s surprise. “I thought it was all over when Morris got nabbed. It’s not. Leeds said he hired another guy, more professional, for Merrie. She was the youngest, so he thought Grayling would care more for her. Damned irony, isn’t it?” he added coldly. “He sets up hits on both Grayling women to punish a man who was already dead.”

  “He didn’t know it at the time,” Jon replied. “He’s tried to help. He did know where Morris hung out. We staked out the bar and caught him the morning after you and Mandy left for the Bahamas.”

  “That was a hell of a trip. I identified a corpse that I thought was Isabel.” His eyes closed. “Funny, how quick you get your priorities in order when you think you’ve lost everything.”

  “You were lucky,” Jon said, smiling. “She’s a great catch. It never hurts to have an ADA in your corner when you’re working a local case,” he added before Paul could take offense at why she was a great catch.