“You mean the fugitive you told to contact me to save your life so you could put not only your entire career with the Marshals on the line but mine, as well?” Reed dived his hand into the bag for another cookie, crumbs catching in the clean-cut beard around his jaw and mouth. “That Raleigh?”
Blistering rage exploded through him while the deputy sat there as if nothing in the world mattered but those damn cookies. “If you handed her over to the feds, I swear to spend the rest of my life—”
“Relax, Foster. You trusted me for a reason.” Reed tossed the bag onto the coffee table between them, mouthing something that looked a whole lot like “wow” as he leaned forward. “She’s on the bed upstairs asleep. The woman could barely stand on her own, let alone carry your sorry hide up those stairs by herself, but she stood by you until I gave her doctor’s orders to rest after a transfusion of her own. You’ve only been unconscious for four hours.” Reed motioned to the other end of the sofa, where the barest of impressions dipped in the cushion. “I hit my elbow on the doorjamb bringing your unconscious body inside my house, if you care to know.”
“I don’t.” She’d stayed with him despite the shrapnel injury in her side. Always putting others first, even at the cost of her own life. Hell, if he hadn’t sent her running, she wouldn’t have even been near that car when it’d exploded. The shooter had done enough research to look into Beckett’s background. He should’ve known Emily Cline had just as easy a way into the seized property records. Or her partner did. Beckett rubbed at his eyes as the throbbing in his head echoed behind his ears. “How is she?”
He couldn’t ask about the baby. As much as he trusted the deputy, that information was Raleigh’s to share, and he doubted she’d let her pregnancy slip. Especially to someone she didn’t know.
“Not in cuffs,” Reed said.
“You know what I meant.” Aside from the jokes and the constant sarcasm, Finnick Reed had watched Beckett’s back enough times to earn his trust. A groan worked through his chest as he shifted his position on the couch. His shirt and jeans had been ripped to expose the stained gauze over both wounds.
“She didn’t lose as much blood as you did, but she wouldn’t let me patch her until I was able to get your bleeding under control and your vitals stable. Studied every move I made until I sewed in the last stitch like she was waiting for me to make a mistake. Something tells me I don’t want to know what would’ve happened if I had.” Reed stretched. His vintage-wash T-shirt emblazoned with a superhero logo rode higher. As if Reed was some modern-day, real-life hero—to himself and any woman who happened to be passing through his life. Who wore a threadbare T-shirt with formal trousers? Finnick Reed. That was who. The deputy stood, making his way around the black glossy kitchen island toward the refrigerator. He pulled two water bottles from the shelves and retraced his steps to hand Beckett one. “Both of you are damn lucky I answered the phone, and that I happen to keep stores of blood in my freezer instead of tater tots. Drink up. The headache is only going to get worse.”
Beckett didn’t give a damn about his headache right then, but he took the water anyway. The cold penetrated through the plastic straight down to bone, kept him grounded. There were only two things that mattered right now. Raleigh and their baby, and the danger closing in on them both, but he couldn’t risk moving them until Raleigh had a chance to recover from the fight with Emily Cline. Unscrewing the cap to the bottle, Beckett took a long swig. “You could’ve turned us both in, saved yourself a whole lot of trouble.”
“Now, where’s the fun in that?” A smile tugged at one corner of Reed’s mouth, deepening the laugh lines on either side of a nose that’d been broken one too many times. “Gotta tell you, having a woman like that show up on my doorstep in the middle of the night, not my worst day. Could’ve done without the blood on my couch, though. Next time remember it’s supposed to stay on the inside of your body.”
“I’ll try to keep that in mind.” Beckett wiped a thin layer of crusted blood onto his jeans from his hand. Hell, they were ruined anyway. “Give us until sunrise. Nobody has to know we were ever here.”
Reed set his water bottle on the coffee table, untouched. Overgrown light brown hair lost its shape as the former combat medic interlocked his fingers between his knees. “Is it worth your career, Foster? What you’re doing here. Is it worth risking everything you believe in, and the people who’ve watched your back all these years? Because I read her file. I saw the prosecution’s case. Everything—all the evidence—led back to her.” The deputy pointed his index finger at him as he stood, his shadow casting across Beckett’s knees. “So whatever you have in mind, you better do it fast. The longer you wait to bring her in, the worse it’ll get. Not just for you. For all of us.”
Beckett twisted his grip around the water bottle, the plastic cracking. He put most of his weight into his uninjured leg, shoved to his feet and stretched out one hand. “Thanks for the help, Reed.”
“Glad there was still time I could.” Reed shook his hand, then headed for the front door. He pulled a deep tan trench coat from off the rack near the alarm panel and slid his arms into each sleeve. “You owe me a new couch, and one keep-my-name-out-of-a-crime-scene-report card.”
Damn it. Emily Cline’s body. Sooner or later, he’d have to answer for that, considering the shooter had taken his service weapon off him and Raleigh’s prints would be discovered on the weapon that killed her former assistant. Their prints and DNA were all over that ranch. It wouldn’t be hard for forensics to place them at the scene, but it looked like Reed had bought them some time. “You got it.”
A burst of cold air slithered into the new holes in his clothes as Reed closed the door behind him. Within seconds, the growl of an outdated, muscled engine filled the cabin and headlights flashed. Beckett didn’t wait around to watch the deputy make his way down the mountain through the windows. Not when every instinct he owned was begging him to search her out. He headed for the thick black handrail off one side of the kitchen leading up to the next level. The same color of sleek wood paneling followed him up the stairs and rounded the wide expanse of the master bedroom. A large queen-size bed took up most of the space in the center of the room, a minimalistic rack with hangers off to one side. Matching nightstands with lamps, light carpet, modern art hanging above the bed tied in the modern but rustic theme, and in the center of it all, the woman who made it all disappear.
Raleigh lay on one side, faced away from him. Long damp hair spread across the dark gray pillowcase. The clothes she’d been wearing were discarded on the floor, spots of bright red blood so stark against the white fabric of her undershirt, and his gut clenched. She’d stayed with him, watched over him, as Reed had worked to keep him from bleeding out, even at the risk of injuring herself further. That drive of hers, the one that pushed her to be the best, to get the job done, that had built her into the woman he’d fallen in love with all those months ago, kept her from seeing the consequences of putting everyone but herself first. She could’ve died out there. They could’ve lost the baby, but she was the reason he was standing here. She was the reason he hadn’t given up hope.
“Stop standing there and get in the bed.” Her sleep-coated voice sent heat through his veins. She rolled onto her opposite shoulder, hypnotizing green eyes settling on him, and the past two days slid to the back of his mind.
“There’s plenty of room on the floor.” Exhaustion dug into his muscles as he slipped off his boots and tossed his destroyed pants onto the floor, her gaze following his every move. Pressure built behind his chest, but not the same kind as when they’d been facing off against a professional killer. No, this was something deeper, more exposing. They’d been through hell together, and he guessed that made them more alike than he’d originally believed.
“Your chivalry is going to tear your stitches.” She maneuvered back onto her side, the outline of the same gauze and tape Reed patched him with visible throu
gh the oversize superhero T-shirt she’d donned. “Besides, we’re adults. I think we can keep our hands to ourselves.”
It wasn’t her hands he was worried about. After everything they’d been through at the ranch, he wanted nothing more than to hold her against him, to make sure she was real and this wasn’t some nightmare he couldn’t wake up from. Medical tape pulled at the hairs across his thigh, stinging. He went for the folded clothes on the bottom shelf of the clothing rack. He and Reed weren’t the same size, but close enough to make the two-people-one-bed situation a little less awkward. Pain arced through him as he shoved both feet into a pair of sweats meant for someone less bulky than he was and threaded his arms into another one of Reed’s superhero tees. He approached the bed, locking on the exhausted, intelligent woman under the sheets. “Enjoying the show?”
“It’s been so long since I’ve seen the show, I’ve got to enjoy it while I can get it.” Her laugh lit up the parts of him that hurt the most as he slipped between the warm sheets. Within seconds, he’d forgotten all about the pain as Raleigh pressed her back against his chest, a perfect fit against him. “Don’t move a muscle, Marshal Foster.”
Beckett rested his cheek against the crown of her head and closed his eyes. “I’m not going anywhere.”
* * *
SHE TRACED THE OUTLINE of the gauze taped to his shoulder through the soft T-shirt he’d borrowed. His chest rose and fell in easy rhythms as morning sunlight pierced through the edges of the curtains. Nothing like before when she’d found him unconscious in that barn fighting for breath. He was warm and rough, and she didn’t dare stir for fear of ruining this perfect moment. They’d survived. Somehow. He’d protected her when every second leading up to right now she’d doubted his promise, doubted he would keep his word, but he’d been there. Made sure they’d made it off that ranch alive.
Grazing his split bottom lip with her thumb, she gave in to the explosive memories of that gut-wrenching kiss they’d shared before the bullets had started flying. She could still taste him. His underlying flavor of peppermint and wildness, but that kiss had been more than pure physical desire. It’d been a hit to the invisible barriers she’d been building all her life, the distance she’d put between her and everyone around her. The cracks had started spreading when they’d been together for those short few months, but after her arrest they had filled with a clear ice she hadn’t let anyone break through. Only now... Now for the first time, she felt herself trying to break down that barrier, break through the distrust and hurt. He might’ve originally defended her as some part of that moral code of his or out of obligation to their baby, but he’d still saved her life. He’d still kept his word to be there for her, even when he’d had the chance to leave her behind, and the numbness from that destructive black hole inside that’d always felt unwanted—unloved—eased a bit. Her insides warmed as she settled her chin against his uninjured shoulder and studied the movement behind his closed eyelids. “How long have you been pretending to be asleep?”
Piercing blue eyes matched the smile tugging at one corner of his mouth. He slid his hand over hers, positioned directly over his heart. The rhythmic beat pulsed through her, ensured this wasn’t just some dream. He was here. He was real. “Who says I’m pretending?”
“You never were a good liar.” A laugh bubbled up her throat as she leveraged her elbow into the mattress to see his face better, something that seemed to come easier the longer he was around. The stitches in her side stretched but stayed in place. “So do you make it a requirement of your friends to store extra bags of blood, or is that part of Reed thinking he’s a superhero?”
“The shirts.” His chest shook with a laugh, followed by a groan as he clutched the wound in his shoulder. “Yeah, don’t ask me why, but there’s not a single shirt in his possession that doesn’t have some kind of superhero logo on it. The guy’s obsessed.”
“That was clear while he was stitching you up. Kept telling me all about one of the movies he saw last week. I had no idea what he was talking about.” She hadn’t really had time to keep up on anything outside her own personal investigation into whoever’d stolen from the foundation’s donations accounts other than a few baby books. “Guess I’ve been out of the loop for a while. I don’t even know if you’re living in the same apartment, or if you started seeing someone else after we...”
Air caught in her lungs. He’d kissed her back at the ranch. He wasn’t the kind of man to kiss a woman while another waited for him to finish up his assignment, but that didn’t mean he hadn’t quickly moved on after her arrest. Didn’t mean he hadn’t replaced her.
“You’re asking if I’ve been with anyone else since we split up?” he asked.
She shouldn’t care. They weren’t together anymore, and they didn’t have plans to change that in the future. No matter what happened with the investigation, they’d agreed to be active in their daughter’s life, but tension still flittered down her spine as she put a few more inches of space between them. Part of her did care—too much—and she wasn’t sure what to do with that. She didn’t like this feeling—this hope—he’d changed his mind about cutting her from his life after discovering the truth she’d been framed. Because anytime she’d given in to that sensation, she’d always been the one to get hurt, the one left behind. She moved to get out of the bed. “I’m sorry. It’s not any of my business.”
Calloused fingers wrapped around her arm, preventing her from escaping the warmth of the sheets, and she turned back into him. Beckett leveled his gaze on her, and everything inside her balanced on the edge of some invisible cliff waiting for his answer. One word. That was all it would take, and she’d fall. He released his hold on her arm and threaded his fingers through the hair at the base of her neck. “There hasn’t been anyone but you, and when we were out there together, fighting to stay alive, I realized I didn’t want there to be.”
His admission cut through her, and her mouth dropped open. “What?”
“I made a mistake. After your arrest.” Sliding his hand down her neck, along the most sensitive part of her throat, Beckett followed the trail of her collarbone. Fire erupted in the wake of his touch. In the past few months she’d known her body could feel pain, trauma, betrayal and numbness, usually more than one at a time, but she’d never felt this. This...connectedness to another human being. This craving. The muscles along his arm rippled as he ventured over her sternum and scorched a path toward her navel, resting where their baby thrived. “After we fled into the woods, you said I was so determined to make you the enemy, I refused to see if there was the tiniest shred of evidence proving your innocence. And you were right.”
Her heart jerked in her chest. Deep down, she’d known that to be true, but there’d still been a piece that’d wanted her to be wrong. Hearing him admit it now... She didn’t know what to say to that. Didn’t know what he wanted her to say.
“I was so angry about what my father did to our family, I’ve been blinded from seeing anything other than the black and white in front of me. Good vs. bad. Guilty vs. innocent. People who hurt others vs. those who don’t.” He fisted his hand and dug it into the mattress between them. He cast his gaze down, refusing to meet her eyes. “Whenever I asked about your family, you dodged the question or would change the subject. I felt like you were keeping me at a distance the entire time we were together, hiding something, and after I got my hands on those sealed records, I was so positive I was seeing the real you for the first time. The criminal you didn’t want me to know about. There were so many similarities between your case and my father’s, I automatically equated all of that hatred and rage I had for what he’d done with you, but I was wrong. About everything, and I’m sorry. I know you had nothing to do with stealing those donations, and I’ll spend the rest of my life trying to make up for my mistakes if that’s what you need from me.”
Tears burned in her eyes as the last of the barrier she’d built between them shattered.
“I’m sorry, too. Keeping my past from you had nothing to do with you and everything to do with me, Beckett. I never meant to keep you at arm’s length. I just...wasn’t ready to face it yet. All that pain, the consuming shame every time I thought about what’d happened with my brother.” Raleigh framed his face with one hand, forcing him to look up at her. The dark, swirling blue depths of his eyes broadcast the internal war struggling to break through the surface. His beard tickled her palm as she stroked her thumb along his jaw. “But being with you these past couple of days, having to relive that part of me, confronting it openly and honestly, has finally forced me to get rid of this weight that’s been suffocating me for years. You did that for me, and that counts for a lot more than you give yourself credit for.”
“You give me too much. I told you I’d always be there for you. Then I disappeared when you needed me the most.” He turned his mouth into her palm, anchoring her hand against his face with his, and kissed the sensitive skin below her fingers. “I was a coward, and you deserved a whole hell of a lot better than me.”
“Good thing I’m the one who gets to decide what I deserve.” Raleigh leaned into him, pressing her mouth to his softly. After everything they’d been through, how much he’d risked to keep her safe, coupled with his apology, the hurt she’d been holding on to for the past few months released a bit of its grip from her chest. Heat raced down her neck and across her shoulders as he rotated onto his back, dragging her with him, and a smile broke through her control. “I think you misunderstood. Right now, what I deserve looks like a US marshal making me breakfast.”
“You got it.” His laugh resonated through her, and she fought to memorize every second. There’d been times after her escape from federal custody she’d tried to remember that laugh, what it’d been like to wake up beside him, how it’d felt to have him warm her when a draft came through their apartment. In the end, they’d just been fragments of memory, but this... She’d never forget this. Beckett slid his legs over the side of the bed, then turned to press his hands into the mattress as he claimed her mouth in a dizzying kiss. The sweats he’d borrowed from Reed outlined thick lines of muscles in his legs and calves, and she couldn’t help but enjoy the view. “Eggs, waffles and sausage coming right up. Don’t go anywhere.”
The Fugitive Page 11
