THE TEMPTATION OF SEAN MCNEILL

by Virginia Kantra

  "No!" she screamed as Bilotti twisted and fired over his shoulder.

  Flash. Bang. The gunshot, echoing in the close interior of the car, nearly deafened her. Sean disappeared from the opening as pebbles of glass showered inward. Rachel turned her face away.

  Was he safe? Shot? She struggled to see.

  Bilotti levered himself up with an elbow on her stomach. She grunted and bucked against his weight.

  He jerked his gun hand around. "Bitch." The muzzle wavered, seeking her.

  Sobbing, she curled into the door, kicking out at him. Her foot struck his arm. The gun fired. Pain exploded in her ears, but it was only sound. The bullet ripped through the roof, leaving black powder burns on the gray lining.

  The door pinning Bilotti's legs jerked open. Sean's big hands, his strong arms, heaved Bilotti off her and dragged him from the car. She heard the thump and bowl as his chin hit the jamb of the door, saw the gun wave over his head.

  She reached for the door handle that dug into her back, felt the catch release and tumbled from the car. She staggered and ran behind the trunk to the other side.

  She saw work boots and jeans and blood. Lots of blood. Sean's blood? Her heart stopped. He sprawled on top of Bilotti, the two men scrabbling for position like a pair of high school wrestlers. Only Bilotti's gun arm was pinned above his head, and the back of Sean's white shirt was dark with blood.

  He was hit. He was hurt. A new, raw terror froze her heart, her lungs, her legs.

  Time crawled.

  Gowan should be here.

  He wasn't coming.

  Bilotti heaved, and more blood seeped into Sean's shirt.

  She sobbed. "Oh, God. Oh, God. What can I do?"

  "Stomp on his hand," Sean directed tersely. "Get the gun."

  She ran around their feet and scuffled along the inside of the door, her eyes fixed on Sean's left shoulder, on the ominous spread of blood. His right arm stretched over Bilotti's, clamping his forearm. Bilotti's knuckles were white with his efforts to free the gun.

  The gun.

  The gun he'd used to shoot Sean.

  She raised her right foot and stomped on the back of his hand.

  The gun fired under the car. She screamed. Bilotti grunted as Sean brought his knee up into his back.

  "Harder," Sean ordered hoarsely.

  Was he paler now? She took a sharp breath and ground her heel into the gunman's hand.

  He yowled. His fingers splayed. She kicked the gun away, under the car.

  "Bitch," Bilotti moaned. "You broke my hand."

  "Good," she spat.

  Sean laughed weakly.

  Oh, God. He was still bleeding. She ripped off her blouse to staunch the flow of blood.

  Falling to her knees in the dirt beside him, she heard the rev of motors, the crunch of gravel. One car? Two? Doors slammed. Men's voices raised. She pressed her shirt against Sean's wound. He needed help. More help than she could give him. With a desperate glance behind her, she staggered to her feet and around the crane.

  A dark sedan parked at the edge of the roadbed. A sleek pickup bounced toward it through the ruts. Four men in dark jackets ran over the uneven ground, kicking up red dust with every stride.

  Rachel waved frantically, not caring that she was only wearing a bra and shorts. Her shirt was wadded against Sean's shoulder.

  "Hold on," she begged him. "It's Lee Gowan."

  Bilotti cursed.

  Sean turned his ashen face to grin crookedly over his shoulder. "Guess the cavalry made it after all."

  He slumped, unconscious, just as Gowan arrived. Rachel sobbed. Sean had rescued her from the devil, and delivered her into hell.

  * * *

  Chapter 15

  «^»

  Sean was no stranger to hospitals. Between his nephew's accident, his father's stroke a couple years back, and his sister-in-law's job, he'd done his time in lounges and cafeterias. Sean didn't mind the waiting. He could even handle the coffee.

  But all that was different from lying on a hard bed and a flat pillow with a plastic line running into his arm. He hurt. His throat ached from the tube they'd stuck down him before operating to remove the bullet from his shoulder joint. His right arm was tight and swollen around the IV, and his left shoulder hurt like a son of a bitch despite the drugs pumping through him. He couldn't eat yet. He couldn't sleep. Hell, he could barely make it to the bathroom by himself, trundling along with his IV pole and the hospital gown flapping around his butt.

  Sean grinned at the acoustic tiles above his head. All things considered, he felt pretty good.

  He felt like a goddamn hero.

  "You acted like a goddamn fool, getting shot," Con had told him, while Patrick nodded in grim agreement.

  But it didn't matter any longer what his brothers thought All that mattered was that Rachel was safe.

  Safe, but not with him.

  Sean shifted on the unforgiving mattress, trying to find a comfortable position with his arm strapped to his chest. He understood that, after all the excitement, Rachel needed to get her children settled in their own beds last night. He knew she had classes to teach today.

  He'd been aware of and grateful for her presence yesterday evening: her hand cool on his forehead, her lips warm on his cheek. He'd carried her scent with him into sleep, and when he'd opened his eyes the first thing he'd seen had been her dark hair loose around her pale, worried face.

  She didn't have to worry anymore. He was fine. Everything was going to be fine. It was stupid to feel lonely.

  The bed next to his was empty, but the friendly nurses made regular checks on his room. Sean smiled at the ceiling. Very friendly nurses. Very regular checks. Lee Gowan came to take a statement. Not a social call, that, but welcome all the same, since it helped put the Bilottis away.

  And the MacNeills rallied, as always, around the fallen of the clan. Con and Val had been by twice, last night and this morning. Kate used her doctor privileges to sit with him after visiting hours, and Patrick had brought Jack in to see him. Jack, a hospital veteran, brought his uncle hard candy and an electronic baseball game. When his parents called, Sean barely talked Bridget out of flying down to nurse him, and even big taciturn John MacNeill got on the phone to hear for himself that their youngest son was all right.

  Sean had no grounds for missing Rachel But he did.

  The door opened, and she was there like an answer to his prayers, grave and beautiful as an angel in a stained-glass window. She must have come directly from school. She was still in teacher clothes, a long skirt and navy pumps. He smiled with pure pleasure at seeing her.

  She smiled back uncertainly. "They told me you were asleep."

  "More like stuck in bed." He twitched back a corner of the sheet. "Want to join me?"

  She shook her head, but she sat by the bed, close enough that he could smell her perfume. "I never thanked you for yesterday."

  He started to shrug; grimaced instead as the movement pulled his shoulder. "I didn't do anything."

  "You got shot."

  "That didn't help you any."

  "Stop fishing. You were wonderful, and you know it. You followed me."

  The disbelief in her voice made him frown. "You kept your head. You left the car where I could see it."

  "If you hadn't come when you did—"

  "Yeah, and if the FBI hadn't come when they did—" She sat up straighter. "You already had Bilotti on the ground."

  "And you kicked his gun away."

  Momentary pleasure sparkled in her eyes, banishing the guilt. "Only because you told me to."

  "So, we make a good team."

  "I don't think crime fighting is in my future," Rachel said dryly.

  Her future. Yes. Funny how the word had always made him squirm. Now all he could think was how bleak his future would be without her in it.

  "I'm no superhero, either," he said.

  The glow in her eyes made him feel as though he had a big red S on his chest instead of surgical tap
e and a bandage.

  "Hero enough," she said simply.

  He was caught between pleasure and embarrassment. "I hope I've got what it takes to make you happy, anyway."

  "Sean, I—"

  "Wait a minute." Damned if he'd say his next bit lying flat on his back. He struggled to sit up. His shoulder screamed in protest, and he fumbled for the control that would raise the bed.

  "Are you all right?" Rachel asked anxiously.

  "Fine," he lied. Sweat broke on his upper lip. He could release another dose of painkiller into his IV, but he didn't want to make the biggest decision of his life whacked out on morphine.

  He dropped the control and took her hand, cursing the lack of two good arms. "Look, maybe neither one of us is cut out for battling bad guys. But we did it together. We're good together."

  "We are. But—"

  "Now that this is over, I want us to stay together."

  "Oh." Real distress pulled at the corners of her mouth. Her hand trembled in his. "I never meant… I just came to thank you."

  He kissed her fingertips. What was she upset about? "Thanking me is good. You can thank me any way you want. Of course, this bed's a little small, but—"

  "We shouldn't be having this discussion now. You're hurt."

  "Wounded, but functional." When she didn't smile, unease stirred in his gut. "What is it?"

  "I don't want to fight with you."

  He tried to joke. "Won't make love, won't fight… What's left?"

  She looked wretched. "Nothing. Nothing's left."

  "What are you talking about?"

  She tugged her hand away. Folded it in her lap. "I'm not like you. I'm a steady, boring person. I want a steady, boring life. I can't live with the highs and lows. When I saw you lying there… I never want to be so frightened again."

  Panic, compounded by sleeplessness and pain, roughened his voice. "That's stupid. You'd be frightened—and a hell of a sight worse—if I hadn't shown up."

  "I know that. I told you, I'm grateful."

  "I don't want your damn gratitude."

  "I can't give you anything else. I have the children to think of. They're just getting over their father's death. He killed himself, for heaven's sake. And then you getting shot… It's too soon, don't you see?"

  "That's bull. The kids and I do fine."

  Her eyes pleaded with him to understand. "They need stability."

  He understood better than she knew. "No. That's what you think you need."

  "What if I do?"

  "Then you're wrong. You need me." Needed him to be there for her, to pledge her his life and his heart and his strength. Why didn't she see that?

  "Need you?" she asked.

  He didn't like her tone. Damn it, he needed her. She was the other half of him, the solid center of his world, the brisk wind that gave wings to his dreams. Impatient with her denial, he said rashly, "You never had it so good."

  Her chin snapped up. "The sex has never been so good, if that's what you mean. Is that what you want to hear?"

  "It'll do for a start."

  She was working herself into a fine, feminine temper now. "There's more to my life than sex."

  "Hell, don't I know that? Isn't that what I'm trying to be part of? But I can't do it if you won't let me in."

  "I can't!" she cried. "I can't let you in and live with the fear of losing you."

  The way she'd lost her father. The way she'd lost her husband. The way she'd lost Uncle Jed and all the men who'd come and gone in her childhood.

  Stubbornly, Sean repeated, "I'm not going anywhere."

  She turned his own words back against him. "You might not have a choice."

  "Maybe when they let me out of here, I should just go to my brother's," he challenged her.

  Her lips trembled. She pressed them together. "Maybe that would be best."

  She stood. She couldn't be leaving.

  She was.

  "Rachel!"

  She turned politely at the door, her face a mask of misery.

  What could he do, Sean thought in panic, what could he say, to convince her to stay? He'd always been good with words and better with women, but her distress and determination wiped his mind as blank as a primed wall. And so he spoke the first, and possibly the worst, words that came to his unwary tongue. "You're making a big mistake."

  Her shoulders were rigid. "It's my mistake to make."

  "But it's all of us who will live with the consequences."

  She had nothing to say to that. The door closed silently behind her, leaving him alone with his splinted shoulder and his broken heart.

  Chump.

  * * *

  Myra shook a dish towel from the laundry basket that sat on the kitchen table. "You haven't been to the hospital today, dear."

  Guilt and longing lashed Rachel. Grabbing one of Chris's shirts, she folded it tightly into a precise square.

  "I went yesterday. And I called today to see how Sean was doing. The nurse said he didn't have a fever. He can go home tomorrow."

  "Why don't you go tonight? See for yourself."

  It was too tempting. Sean would look at her with his shrewd dark eyes and touch her with his big hard hands and she'd forget all her good intentions and give him anything he wanted. Everything she wanted. And then when he didn't want any more, her heart would be shattered and her children would be bewildered and her mother would want her to take up with the next man who passed by.

  No.

  "I don't like to leave the children," Rachel said, taking refuge in more laundry. More lies. "They're still upset about this weekend."

  Myra tutted. "Chris had a wonderful time. And Lindsey's only angry because you didn't tell her what was happening, not because you left them with the MacNeills."

  "They're still my responsibility. I'm not going to ask you to baby-sit again."

  "Then take them. They want to see Sean, too."

  "I don't want them to get too attached to him."

  "It may be too late for that," Myra said.

  Rachel was afraid her mother was right. She thought of Chris's excitement over the family ball game, Lindsey's comfort in the kitten, Sean's patience with them both. "They'll get over it."

  "Probably. But will you?"

  "I'll have to, won't I?"

  Myra sighed. "I suppose. And you'll probably be better at it than I was. Though I really thought the children liked Sean. You were so close to your father, I never felt it was fair to ask you to accept another man in your life."

  "There were a lot of men, Mama."

  "Yes," Myra agreed simply. "I used to get so lonely." She added with pride, "But I never married any of them."

  Rachel felt as though one of the socks had just turned around and bit her. "Wait a minute. They asked?"

  Myra patted her hair. "From time to time. But of course I said no."

  Rachel's brain whirled. "Because of me," she said slowly. "You didn't marry because you wanted to protect me?"

  It was a tough concept to wrap her thoughts around. All this time she'd worried about repeating her mother's mistakes by indulging in a fleeting affair. Think of the children, she'd told herself. Protect the children. And all the time Myra Jordan believed she had done the same.

  Rachel had repeated her mother's mistakes after all, and the realization made her sick. She bowed her head over the laundry basket. She'd projected her fears of abandonment onto her children so that she wouldn't have to examine her own feelings and failings too closely.

  And Sean had seen it. Sean had known.

  Who are we talking about here? he'd argued.

  That's what you think you need.

  You are so afraid of losing you can't win.

  "You're my daughter," Myra said simply. "I always put you first."

  Rachel's eyes stung. She bent to hug the short, soft, wrong-headed woman sitting at the kitchen table. "Oh, Mama. I do love you."

  "I love you, too," Myra said.

  Rachel hesitated. "Was there ever a
nyone that you…"

  "Wanted?" Her mother's eyes slid away. "I suppose. Jed Peeler from church… But that was too soon after your father died. Jed didn't want to wait, and I didn't want to hurt you. And after that, I just didn't let myself think that way."

  Uncle Jed and her mother. Rachel struggled with the might-have-beens and then gave up. She couldn't blame her mother for her decisions.

  But she could reexamine her own.

  * * *

  If he couldn't have Rachel, he should at least be allowed to drink.

  Sean sat on the front porch swing, his shoulder trussed and aching. He watched his brothers tip back long-necked bottles of beer, and his sense of unfairness grew.

  Val intercepted his brooding look and smiled. "Get you one?" she offered.

  Kate shook her head. "Not with the Vicodin he's taking."

  Con reached out a long arm to pull his wife down beside him. "She's pregnant, anyway. She shouldn't be fetching for you. Get your own woman to wait on you."

  "I tried," Sean said shortly. "She wasn't interested."

  Con raised his eyebrows. "Uh-oh."

  Kate asked quietly, "How is Rachel?"

  Patrick set down his bottle with a decisive clink. "She's fine. He's the one who got shot."

  Val addressed the porch in general. "I just love it when he does the protective big brother routine, don't you?"

  Sean ignored her. "Rachel's doing all right."

  "Did they arrest the other man? The one in Philadelphia?" Kate pressed.

  "They got him. According to Gowan, Frank's busy talking himself out of the extortion charge, and Carmine's trying to convince the feds shooting at us was all his nephew's idea. They should have enough to put both Bilottis away for a long time."

  "How are the kids?" Patrick asked.

  "The kids are fine. Rachel is fine. Her life is back in its safe little rut, and she has everything she ever wanted." Sean glared around belligerently. "Which, since you all are so interested in my private life, does not include me."

  Not unsympathetically, Con asked, "Feeling sorry for yourself, are you?"

  "Hell, no. Who needs her? Who needs any of it? She used me." Just like Trina had.

  "Used you, how?"

  "Like some stupid bodyguard." It hurt.

  "But you said she told you not to follow her," Con argued logically. "The feds told you not to follow her. That Bureau guy, that Gowan, he sounded ticked that you were there at all."