Her Secret Agent Man (19 page)

Dutch blinked. His eyesight blurred for a second. What was it with all these sappy moments broadsiding him like this recently? Julia’d made him go soft, dammit.

The colonel nodded crisply, thankfully either ignoring or not noticing Dutch’s reaction. “So. Now that we’ve got that cleared up, you wanna go see your lady?”

Dutch surged up in the bed.

The colonel put a restraining hand on his shoulder. “Hold on, cowboy. They’re making me take you down to ICU in a wheelchair. Seems none of the nurses want to get anywhere near you. Have you been a problem patient, Captain?”

Dutch grinned up at his boss.

He managed to get out of bed and into the wheelchair without flashing his bare ass at the colonel, but was surprised at how winded he was by the brief exertion. Ferrare’s bullets had really done a number on his chest through his bulletproof vest. He had four melon-size purple bruises to show for it.

The colonel wheeled him down several long, quiet corridors. And then they turned into the intensive care unit.

Doc got up from a chair outside a door. The medic grinned. “Good to see you up and about, man.”

Dutch replied seriously. “Thanks for saving her, Joe.”

“Anytime, my friend. Anytime.”

And then the colonel pushed him into a roomful of ma
chines and monitors. In the middle of it all lay Julia. God, she was pale. So small and fragile-looking in the midst of all those tubes and gadgets.

The colonel parked him by her side and slipped from the room, closing the door behind him.

“Hey, gorgeous,” Dutch murmured.

Her eyes fluttered open. It took a moment for her to focus, but then she saw him and her whole face lit up. “Thank God you’re alive,” she said on an exhalation of relief.

“I almost lost you,” he said gruffly. “What were you thinking, trying to save me like that?”

Her lips curved up in a faint smile. “The way I hear it, you’re the one who ended up saving me. Like you always do.”

He shrugged. He’d be just as happy if he could forget those frantic moments when he thought he was going to lose her. Maybe he could arrange another memory block somehow. “Doc did most of the work.”

She replied gently, “Yes, but it was your voice I heard, giving me a reason to fight to live.”

“You heard that stuff, huh?” he mumbled.

“Some of it. Enough of it,” she replied softly.

Had she heard the part about how he couldn’t live without her? “Julia,” he started. And stopped, at a loss for words.

Julia held her breath, even though doing so caused her intense pain.
Please God, let him not be about to end their relationship.
She waited as he continued to struggle for words.

Finally, she reached out, dragging an armful of tubes with her, and touched his cheek. “What’s on your mind? You know you can be honest with me.”

He sighed. Started again. “Julia. I’ve said some pretty harsh things to you. Believed some pretty harsh things of you. And I was wrong.”

She blinked in surprise.

“I owe you an apology. And I owe you a thank-you for diving in front of me to take that bullet.”

“You must really think I’m a numbskull for jumping in front of a guy wearing a bulletproof vest.”

A smile twitched at the corners of his mouth. “Doc told you about that, huh?”

“Yeah. I guess I looked incredibly stupid, didn’t I?”

“What I saw was an incredibly brave woman willing to sacrifice her life to save mine.”

She looked away, abashed by his praise. An awkward silence formed between them.

Dutch cleared his throat. “Actually, I came to negotiate a surrender.”

She closed her eyes. Of course. Charlie Squad still wanted her to testify against her father. Now more than ever, since he’d slipped through their grasp yet again. “I’ll testify against my father under one condition. You have to get my sister away from him safely.”

Dutch blinked in surprise. “Boss!” he called out.

Colonel Folly opened the door and looked in, along with Doc. “Yes?”

“Julia says she’ll testify against Eduardo as soon as we get her sister away from him.”

“Outstanding.” Colonel Folly turned to Doc. “Are you up for a trip to Gavarone?”

“Yes, sir,” Doc replied crisply. “I’ll get on it right away.”

Folly nodded and told his medic, “I’m not going to tell any of our support people what you’re up to until we find Ferrare’s mole, so you’ll be operating on your own until I can slide some
more guys from the team down there without anyone finding out. Will you be all right on your own for a couple of weeks?”

The medic nodded confidently.

The colonel turned back to Dutch and Julia. “Don’t you two have anything more important to talk about than testimony in some dumb old federal investigation?”

Julia grinned at the Colonel’s comical waggle of his eyebrows before he left the room, dragging Doc along with him.

She turned her gaze back to Dutch, whose ears were turning pink, if she wasn’t mistaken. She bit back a smile.

“Actually, that wasn’t the surrender I was talking about,” he said reluctantly.

She drew in a quick breath that she instantly regretted. As the stabbing pain in her chest subsided slowly, Dutch stood up out of his wheelchair.

“Some pair we make, all beat up like this,” she remarked lightly.

“Yeah,” he said gruffly. “Some pair. Why break up a good thing?”

She frowned. She was missing the point. “What do you mean? What does this have to do with my surrender?”

“Actually, I was thinking in terms of
my
surrender. Of surrendering my heart into your care for, oh, forever.”

She lurched, heedless of the shooting pain in her chest. “Are you serious?”

He grimaced as he leaned down over her, his lovely blue eyes gazing deep into hers. “That’s not exactly the sort of thing I’d joke about, sweetheart.”

“Oh, yes. I accept those terms of surrender!” she cried out softly.

She reached up for him and he reached down for her, but both of them stopped partway and gasped in pain. They both
laughed—gingerly. She didn’t care if it felt as if her chest was going to split in two.

She put her hands on his face and looked deep into the beautiful blue ocean of his gaze. “I love you, Jim Dutcher. Forever.”

He leaned forward and kissed her gently on the lips to seal the deal.

And her surrender to him was complete.