Daniel (19 page)

He gave her a small push and watched
with bated breath as Rachel reached for her. As soon as she was standing next
to the agent and her piece, the room grew silent.

“Hello. I’m Reilly Harlequin.” The room
still hadn’t moved, and she looked to him.

The applause started out as a single
person. Then it grew. After only a few seconds, the room was thundering with
it. He looked around and saw there was just as much shock on everyone else’s
face as there had been in hers. He stepped to her when she reached for him, and
he could see the faces of everyone in the room. They loved her.

~~~

Reilly couldn’t smile anymore and went
into the little room she’d been told she could use. Her face hurt, and she thought
maybe her feet were permanently broken. She slipped her shoes off and wiggled
her toes on the soft carpet. When Daniel came around the corner, she smiled. They’d
had little time to talk since they’d gotten there.

“There you are.” He handed her a glass
of champagne. “I just saw Rachel. She’s walking around on cloud nine. She said
to tell you every piece is sold and the premier piece is in a bidding war. I
didn’t hear how much it was at. Are you doing okay?”

“Yes. I just needed a minute. I saw
Benny with your best friend’s wife, Willow. She was telling him about some
puppies she has. Something about their names was funny.” Daniel nodded.

“Yes. Someone else had named them, and
Wills didn’t want to change their names. Their names are Come Here and Damn It.
They have had a couple of litters already, and It is about to drop another one.
I’m supposed to get one of them when they’re ready.” She thought he was
kidding. “No. That’s their names. I’m not sure, but I think Alex’s son has one
and he called it I Said. Not sure though.”

When he pulled her into his arms, she
went willingly. “Are you sure you still want to get married? I won’t hold you
to it if you’d like to change your mind.”

“I do. And I never want to change my
mind.” He nibbled at her neck, and she let him. “How much longer do you have to
hang out here? I’d like to take my future wife home and make love to her in a
big bed.”

“Soon. I’m bushed. I’ve been so stressed
lately that I can’t wait for this to be over.” She looked up at him. “I guess
he’s not coming.”

All night she’d been worried about
Carver showing up. And now it was late enough that some of the patrons were
leaving. Even the Feds had become a little lax. She wondered what they would do
now and decided she’d had enough and told Daniel that she needed to speak to
Rachel before they left. She left the small office to go find her.

She was only out the door for seconds
when she was grabbed from behind.

“Hello, my dear. I’ve been looking for
you. You have something that belongs to me, and I mean to kill you for it.”

Chapter
19

Benny saw the man seconds before he
grabbed his aunt. He couldn’t hear what he said but he didn’t have any problem
recognizing the gun he had pointed at her head. He turned immediately and went
to find Daniel. He shoved him back into the little office before he could come
out.

“He’s got her. He took her right outside,
and he has a gun to her head. She ain’t…isn’t fighting him like you told her,
but he’s got her.” Benny took a deep breath. “I forgot what I’m supposed to do
for the agents.”

“Take a calming breath first. Now. Tell
me where they are and I’ll go and see what I can do to save her.” Daniel turned
him so that Benny was in the room and Daniel was nearer the door. “I want you
to sit right here until—”

“No. I’m not going to hide again while
he hurts her. Never again, do you hear me?” Benny knew he’d shouted, so he
closed his eyes and counted to ten. “I’m not going to let her get hurt if I can
help. You can’t make me.”

He supposed he could. He was the adult
and soon to be his uncle if his aunt lived through this. Benny was going to
make sure she did, even at the cost of giving the man whatever he wanted. When
the door opened again, there stood five men, the men from the house, all of
them Federal Agents.

“Mr. Hunter, Benton, we need you to come
out here. We have a situation.” Benny snorted at the man.
Situation?

“Has he hurt her?” The first agent said
no to Daniel’s question. “Has he left the building yet?”

“No, sir. He wants his backpack and the
kid.” The agent nodded to the fake bag that Benny had brought with him. “He
knows you’re his kid too.”

Benny nodded. That was the plan after
all. He walked out of the room with it on his shoulder and Daniel by his side. Benny
hoped he did this right. He’d been trained for it for so…there they were.

His aunt had a bloody lip, and her dress
was ripped. He reached out to grab Daniel’s hand and started to let it go when
the man squeezed it tight. The softly spoken “steady” was more helpful than all
sorts of words he could have said.

“Ah, the family has arrived. And you’re
the bastard that I sired with the bitch, your mom.” Benny didn’t speak to the
man, but he did lift his chin. That seemed to tick him off. “Don’t get uppy to
me, kid. I don’t want you as my son any more than you do me to be your daddy
dearest. Give me my bag.”

“Give me my aunt.” The man rubbed the
gun along her cheek and then under her chin. “You let her go and I’ll give you
this bag.”

“Yeah right. I know the deal. There are
enough cops in this room right now that I wouldn’t make it to the door. Give me
the bag and I’ll take your aunt with me as insurance. Or didn’t they tell you
that when the Feds prepped you for this little thing?”

“I didn’t need it. I know what I’m
doing.” Benny looked at his aunt and hoped he did. “You let her go and these
guys won’t shoot you here.”

“Benny, do it.” He looked at Reilly. She
nodded at him. “You know what you have to do. Simply do it.”

He didn’t think he could. She and he had
discussed it and gone over it so many times that he could do it in his sleep,
but that was in practice. This was real.

“I don’t think I can.” The man snarled
at him and hit Reilly with the gun. “He’s hurting you now.”

“Benton Reilly Harlequin, do it now or
so help me I’ll ground you for a month.” Benny nodded and put his hand into his
pocket. “Breathe deep and don’t think.”

The gun in his pocket had been there the
entire evening. He’d only touched it when he needed assurances, like every two
minutes, but he knew that now had come the time.

The Feds moved as one. They were
surrounding them completely, and even if Benny did give over the bag, the man
was dead. Benny took the deep breath and pulled the gun and fired at the same
moment. He closed his eyes when he heard a scream. Oh no, he’d killed her
himself.

~~~

Daniel sat on the floor and didn’t move.
He’d been tossed there when they’d rushed O’Reilly, Carver, and Benny. He
hadn’t moved, simply because he wasn’t sure his legs would support him. His mom
sat on the floor next to him after putting her wrap on the floor.

“Did you know he was armed?” Daniel
laughed and said no. “I thought not. They’re holding him for questioning. Did
you know that?”

“Yes, ma’am. They read him his rights
and put him in the back of a car. I was told to stay away if I couldn’t say
anything constructive.” Actually, he’d been told if he didn’t shut his flap
that he’d be tazered. “Have you spoken to him yet?”

“No. He’s fine, Daniel. Benny shot him
in the head just like she’d taught him to do.” She’d taught him to do a great
many things, it seemed. “Curtis is with him now. Advising him to keep his mouth
shut until they charge him.”

“They won’t. They’re just trying to
scare him.” Alan put out his hand. “You have to come with me. I need your
help.”

Daniel stood and felt the room tilt. He
could see the blood. Not that it bothered him all that much, but it was still a
nasty reminder of what had happened. He followed Alan out of the building, and
both of them watched as the coroner’s van was driving away. There wasn’t much
anyone could have done after Carver had half his face blown off.

“Where are you taking me?” He stopped
when they were headed to the ambulance. “She’s in there.”

“Yes. She wants to speak to you. I told
her I’d bring you to her even if I had to drag you kicking and screaming.” Alan
gave him a hard shove. “Go tell her you love her, and then tell her to get to
the hospital so they can let her go home to you.”

She was looking at him when he
approached. He’d been terrified, and now…now he was pissed. The least she could
have done was tell him that they had a plan. When he stopped outside the doors,
the medics there stepped away, but the police only tightened around them.

“The agents would have negotiated. We didn’t
want him around anymore.” Before she could finish, he snapped.

“So you decided to take the law into
your own hands and kill him off. Brilliant. What’s next? The two of you go on
the road as the Harlequin Rodeo? Shall I be your manager?”

She didn’t speak but nodded to the cop
standing next to him. The officer moved between the two of them, and another
cop shut one of the doors. He was startled out of his anger when Royce pulled
him back.

“What the hell is wrong with you? Didn’t
you see what just happened in there? Do you have any idea what those two have
been through? Or is this simply about you?”

He jerked from his brother’s hands and
glared at him. “She and he planned this all along. He was fucking armed, and
she knew it.” The ambulance pulled away with the sirens blaring.

The slap across his face had his neck
snap back. He looked at his sister-in-law and nearly snarled at her to back the
fuck off. But the look in her eyes had him change his mind.

“I love you very much, but right now I
could easily shoot you myself. You moronic bastard, do you think she did this
on the spur of the moment? Do you think that boy didn’t know that someday this
was going to happen, that either of them knew? Of course they did. That bastard
would have killed her, and everyone there knew it, including that kid.” She put
her arms over her chest and glared. “And you’re all pissy because she didn’t
consult the big bad Daniel Hunter before they made plans of their own. I’m sure
that next time a man has a gun to her head Benny will back off.” She shook her
head. “I doubt it, and to be honest, I hope to God he doesn’t. He saved her,
and here you stand whining about how you didn’t know. Well, I got news for you,
buster. If she takes you back now, I’ll never like her again.”

With that, she turned and stomped away. Daniel
looked at Royce. “She’s wrong, and you know it.”

Royce turned back and looked at him for
long moments. “Is she?”

Royce walked toward the cruiser that
Benny was in. The kid was nodding at something Alan was saying to him. Then he
lifted his hands up, and Alan took the cuffs off him. Finally something was
going right. When Benny was let out of the back, he shook Alan’s hand and
nodded again. Daniel walked toward them. Benny saw him and launched himself at
Daniel.

“She’s okay, they said. I can go and see
her with you now. Can we go right now?” Daniel looked down at Benny and nodded.
“She wasn’t hurt at all. I didn’t hit her at all, did I?”

“No. No you didn’t hit her. You killed
the bad guy, but your aunt is just fine. Other than the busted lip and the
small place on her arm, she’s fine.” They’d taken her to the hospital to keep
the media away. No one outside the few people in the room with them, mostly
Feds and family, knew just what had happened.

“I want to go and see her now, okay,
Daniel?” He led him to the waiting limo and wondered if she’d let him in now or
have someone shoot him. He felt like it would be the least he deserved after
what he’d done.

“She would take lessons from that man
and then come home and teach them to me. She said that someday that man would
find us, and she didn’t want either of us to be a victim.” Benny looked out the
window as they rode down the highway. “She told me that choices were hard to
make and I might have to pick whether to live or die or maybe whether she would
or not.”

“She thought she was going to die?” Daniel’s
heart skipped several beats as Benny nodded. “But I thought that she was
learning to protect you both.”

“No. She didn’t want
me
to die. I
was supposed to shoot her in the heart to get to his if that was the way it
happened. See, she and I had all sorts of ways to kill him if he took her. If
he had her in a car I was to kill her. Then when the car wrecked I was to kill
him. If I shot him in the heart, she said I’d be free. I guess she’ll be mad at
me, huh?”

Daniel shook his head. She’d planned to
die tonight. His mind didn’t want to stop that loop going over and over in his
mind. When the door to the limo opened, he followed Benny out and tried to
think through what had really happened. They made their way to the hospital
emergency entrance.

“She taught you to use the gun. I’m
assuming she taught you all sorts of other things as well.” Benny nodded. “Martial
arts?”

“Yes. And how to use a knife, as well as
a rifle. She didn’t want me to be helpless if he came again. I guess she was
right.”

She’d kept him safe. The hidden room,
the lessons, the gun. All of them had been there for the boy, not her. She’d
already figured she was going to die, but he’d been her first and only thought.
They stepped behind the closed-off area, and Benny went to her.

For the most part she ignored him.
Daniel was okay with that for now. He wanted to think. She’d never told him any
of this, he’d already ascertained, because he’d have tried to talk her out of
it or worse, taken the gun from Benny. Then there were her reasons. He’d only
seen pictures of what her sister had looked like. These two not only had seen
her, but Benny had witnessed it. And Daniel would bet his last dollar that the
boy would have nightmares about it for the rest of his life.

“Are you all right?” She didn’t answer
him, so he asked again. Her one nod wasn’t what he wanted, but for now he’d
take all he could get. “Benny, I was wondering if you could go out and find my
mom. I need to speak to your aunt for a moment.”

Benny left, and he got a text from his
brother Curtis that he had him. Daniel put his phone away and sat on the end of
the bed.

“I’d very much like it if you left,” she
said. “I know we agreed to be married, but I think under the circumstances we
both know it wouldn’t work.” He didn’t speak as she continued. “I’ll explain it
to Benny that we were thinking too much about how we’re going to make this work,
and you and I decided that it’s the best for everyone.”

“I didn’t decide anything other than I
want to marry you.” Her look might have been funny if things weren’t so grave. “I
was an ass back there because I was afraid.”

“It doesn’t matter anymore. I understand
that you need—”

“I need you. And Benny.” She looked away,
and he could see the tears in her eyes. A short knock at the door before it
opened was all the warning they got before a nurse and a doctor walked in.

“Mrs. Harlequin, I’m going to release
you. I could put some stitches in your lip there, but I believe it will heal
just as nicely on its own. The bruise on your shoulder is from something hard
and should heal nicely in a few days. Other than that, I don’t see any reason
to keep you any longer.” He put a bag on the bed and smiled. “I got what you
needed from the gift shop. I hope the sizes are all right.”

“I’m sure they are. Thank you.” She
grabbed up the bag as she stood. Before she started toward what he assumed was
the bathroom, she turned back to him. “I don’t want you here when I come back. I
think we both know that we’d never make it, and I’m glad….” She looked away
again to wipe at her cheeks. “I’m glad that we didn’t make a bigger mistake by
marrying.”