Laws of Attraction (30 page)

The car rocketed down the road, mud spraying up on both sides. Dallas’s embrace tightened. “You all right?”

“Yes,” she answered automatically, not really sure if she was or not. It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered now, except that Dallas was here.

“God Almighty, Mia …” He inhaled. “You scared two decades off my life.” He ran his hands over her as if seeking reassurance. “I distinctly remember the last thing I told you was to
stay put
.”

She was trembling. “And where would you be if I had? Even having backup wouldn’t have saved you from— From—” The nightmare of seeing Soledad’s gun pointed at his forehead blazed across her mind, followed by the meaty thunk of bullets slamming into his chest, then his limp body crumpling to the ground. Nausea churned and her vision blackened around the edges. She swayed in his grasp.

“Whoa, hang on, darlin’.” Dallas gently pushed her head toward her knees. “Easy. Take it easy.”

Zane’s worried voice came from a great distance. “She okay?”

“Yeah. Aftershock setting in.” Dallas rubbed her back. “Breathe, baby,” he murmured. “Everything is okay.”

As the car sped along the bumpy, twisting roads, she sat up, woozy and disoriented. She leaned into Dallas, let him stroke her hair while time ceased to exist.

Finally, Dallas said, “Wolfe, hand me your phone so I can check if we have cell service. Bastards confiscated mine along with my weapons.”

Zane passed it over. “Don’t know if we’ll get any yet.”

“Oh,” Mia said dazedly. “Forgot Isabel. In the lodge. Tied up.”

Dallas thumbed a button. “Just barely a signal, and faint as gnat piss. I’ll send someone to fetch Isabel, Mia.” He stabbed in numbers. “Yeah, this Special Agent Dallas McQuade, DEA. Badge number 434972. Scramble your SWAT Team to Portland International—”

The buzzing in Mia’s ears drowned out the rest.
DEA
? Dallas worked for the
Drug Enforcement Agency
?

She speared Zane with a confused glare. “You DEA too?”

“FBI.” He tossed her a contrite smile, dark eyes intense. “Sorry I was so rough on you these last couple weeks. I’m not usually such a major asshole, and I don’t hurt women …
ever
. But I couldn’t burn my cover.” A grin relaxed his sharp features. “Although I admit, I was pretty fried over that incident at the Phoenix airport, but once I cooled down, McQuade and I had a good laugh over it.”

“You laughed— Poker night— You … you’re friends?”

Dallas nodded. “Since college, when Wolfe was my wide-receiver. There’s no man on this earth I feel more confident lobbing a pass to. Those unspoken signals came in mighty handy today.” He touched the bullet holes in his coat. “We belong to a multi-agency task force working this case.”

“Well, that’s perfect. Just
perfect
. DE-friggin’-A. And all this time, you never told me— Never mentioned—” Then Mia horrified herself by bursting into sobs.

“
Hey
.” Dallas patted her back. “Okay. Okay, honey, just go ahead and cry it out, you’ll feel better.”

Unable to stop sobbing, she clung to him, burrowed into the warm, solid comfort of his chest. “I’m n-not crying. I d-don’t c-cry.”

“I know.” His palm stroked her quaking spine. “My strong, brave, smart wife … I would’ve been a goner without you.”

That made her sob harder. “I w-watched you d-die.”

He kissed her temple. “I’m sorry. So sorry, sweetheart. I’d have spared you that if I could.”

“So would I,” Zane said, his deep voice low and strained.

“Let it out, Mia,” Dallas soothed. “Let go, and let it all out.”

She purged her hurt and rage and grief, crying during the entire forty minute drive toward the airport—while Dallas held her, rocked her, passed her tissues, and murmured soothing reassurances in her ear.

The car zoomed onto the freeway entrance, and Zane stomped the gas. Horn blaring, hazard lights flashing, the Bentley tore up the asphalt, traffic in front of them parting in uneven waves.

Mia jerked upright, wiping her eyes. Apparently, when tears got dammed up too long, they flooded the gates. And while she’d never admit it, she
did
feel less like her heart was going to explode in her chest.

“Better?” Dallas asked.

“Compared to what?”

He chuckled. “There’s my girl. And by the way, sugar, playing the baby card with Esteban to convince him to turn us loose was pure genius.”

By the time the car hurtled down the airport exit five minutes later, she’d determinedly pulled herself back together.

The SWAT Team and a squadron of local police officers had assembled outside a makeshift command post in the building across from hangar sixteen.

Zane climbed out of the Bentley, yanked Paul from the backseat.

Mia exited the car just ahead of Dallas. She’d forgotten Paul was even there. For once in Grayson’s miserable existence, he’d played it smart and kept his mouth shut. So what if he’d seen her meltdown? He wasn’t going to be telling anyone except his new federal penitentiary butt-buddy.

Zane handed him over to a uniformed officer, and Dallas turned to Mia. “Are you up to staying and giving a statement? And make sure the locals dot all their i’s and cross their t’s. We don’t want any of the perps skating on a technicality. With you keeping an eye on things, nobody will get away with anything.”

She raised her chin. “You bet.”

“Mia, you did good. Damned good.” Dallas’ hand cupped her face, pain and regret and sorrow darkening his eyes. “It’s all over now, darlin’.”

His hard, desperate kiss felt heartbreakingly like goodbye. Then his tortured gaze lingered on her face for a heartbeat. “Everything is over. I have to go.”

He pivoted and strode away.

Esteban’s plane never made it off the ground.

Three hours later while the SWAT negotiator was talking to Montoya, the rest of the team pumped tear gas into his plane’s ventilation system. Harper, Soledad, and Esteban stumbled out coughing, crying, and puking.

Dallas, Zane, and the team leader ordered the disheveled trio to their knees on the tarmac at gunpoint, cuffed them, then perp-walked them into the far end of the command post. In this case, the father was going to end up paying for the sins of the child.

And ironically, airheaded Isabel—who’d been rescued and was now recovering in the hospital—would end up inheriting what was left of Esteban’s empire when the Feds finished confiscating all illegal assets.

Mia, sitting at a card table with a cup of coffee gone long cold, lost sight of Dallas and Zane in the swarming cops, firefighters, and emergency responders.

She rested her weary, throbbing head on her pillowed arms.
Over. Everything is all over
.

Her chest constricted. Had Dallas been talking about just the case … or did his final words to her have deeper significance?

The talking and bustling around her faded to white noise. Had he regained consciousness in time to hear her declare she loved him? Had it spooked him? She’d seen the tender regard in his eyes, felt it in his touch, when they’d made love … but would finally taking down Esteban vanquish his demons and allow him to open up?

Dallas cared enough about her to risk his life to save hers in the fire. He’d also been willing to gamble his life to ransom Soledad. Because that’s how her cowboy rolled. Hell-bent on saving the world.

Mia’s empty stomach clenched. Was she only another rescue mission in his line-up … and now he was done with her?

She might have dozed off—she certainly wasn’t altogether there when Zane’s voice jerked her upright.

“Mia?”

She stared up at the enigmatic FBI agent. He was alone.

“Where’s Paul?” he asked.

“On his way to jail to become Big Bubba’s boy toy.”

He smirked. “Slick will be the most popular new prom date in the pen.”

“I can’t think of anyone who deserves it more. Him finding out that Daddy Senior, Esteban, and Soledad were about to jet to paradise without him crushed his ego. When faced with an array of charges from drug dealing to murder, the sniveling ratbag couldn’t sell out his pals fast enough.”

“Color me not surprised.”

“He said they also have a chemist on their payroll. They smuggled the cocaine into the States by adding it to the mixture when they manufactured Angelico’s gift boxes in Costa Rica. The drug was actually integrated into the makeup of some of the cardboard boxes, which made it odorless and undetectable to customs’ dogs. Then those boxes that arrived here stamped with a certain configuration of angels were separated out at Esteban’s recycling plant and trucked to secret locations where the cocaine was distilled out and cut for market.”

“Damned clever.” Zane shook his head. “Esteban really didn’t know?”

“No, Paul bragged about how they had him totally hoodwinked. But after Esteban was recently alerted to a confiscated cocaine shipment from one of his factories, then discovered the criminal activity going on in his organization that
looked
like it was his doing, he was loath to bring in the police and risk having his business confiscated under the RICO statute. So he asked his trusted attorneys for help, and hired Dallas to protect him and his family.”

“McQuade lent an assist to get himself hired.”

“I know.” She bit her lip. “Is Dallas … where is he?”

Zane’s stoically contained expression made Mia’s nerves jitter. He looked like man about to deliver unwelcome news.

“Yeah, well … I’ve only been on this case a few months. Dallas has been deep under a long time—five years. There’s protocol. He’s being flown to D.C. to be thoroughly debriefed and put through psych and physical testing. Not sure how long it’ll take, couple weeks maybe. He’s got a lot to tell them. McQuade’s in isolation, not allowed any outside civilian contact. He asked me to get you safely home and make sure you have everything you need.”

She swallowed. There was only one thing she needed, and Zane Wolfe couldn’t get it for her. “Okay.”

As she rose on wobbly legs, Zane took her arm. “Mia, you understand that neither of us could say anything to anyone? That’s the way these ops work. We can’t risk doing anything to burn our cover, especially not with so many lives at stake. Don’t be pissed-off at McQuade for not telling you.”

“I’m not.” But Dallas had gone so far as to marry her in order to maintain his cover. And he was keeping other secrets from her. Secrets that had nothing to do with his job.

She asked Zane to take her to her apartment. Dallas’ house was no longer her home, and she couldn’t assume he’d welcome her presence there when he returned.

It wasn’t what she wanted at all. But what she had to do.

This was the one thing she couldn’t force or push. She trusted Dallas with her body, her heart and her soul…but only he could make the decision to trust her in return.

Inside her dark, cold apartment, she staggered to the bathroom and showered off the mud, the blood, and the tears. Then she dragged her tattered stuffed Bugs Bunny from under the covers and curled up in bed. With Bugs hugged to her chest, she braced herself to do the hardest thing she’d ever done.

Wait for her husband to come back to her.

Or not.

With her heart bruised and aching worse than her battered body, Mia let Dallas go.

* * *

For the tenth … and last … time in ten years, Dallas gently laid a bouquet of sunflowers at the base of the gleaming white marble headstone topped by a fanciful winged unicorn.

I got them baby sister, just like I promised. And put them away forever, where they’ll never hurt another innocent
.

He raised his chin to the sunrise cresting the wide Texas horizon. Locking his wrists at the small of his back, bracing his legs, he prepared to stand a silent twenty-four hour vigil for Tyler-Anne.

Only when the hours had passed and the sun was again about to rise to mark the beginning of his last hour, did Dallas allow himself to think of Mia.

Eighteen days.

Eighteen endless days and nights.

He’d been released from briefing three days ago, but he hadn’t called her. What he had to say couldn’t be said over the phone.

Emotions he’d only now allowed himself to acknowledge tangled inside him like a nest of writhing snakes, nearly strangling him. Relief Mia was okay. White-hot fury at coming so close to nearly losing her. Guilt at deceiving her.

The worst though, was doubt. The doubt that if she knew the entire truth, she might not want him any longer.

The last time he’d seen his wife, her clothes had been torn and filthy, her hair askew, and she’d been covered in mud. Rumpled, exhausted, and unbelievably beautiful. His Mia was one hell of a woman. One of a kind. When all was said and done, would she still be his?

His stomach twisted. Because it wasn’t really all over … not unless he had the guts to throw the final Hail Mary pass.

For the first time since Tyler-Anne died, he cracked open his soul and honestly peered inside. What he saw rocked him to the core.

He
was
desperately afraid of losing Mia, just as he had Tyler-Anne. He was afraid of the all-consuming agony, the sick, swamping guilt, the icy shroud that encased him in a prison of pain.

And the fact was, he was terrified that when Mia discovered the truth, she’d hate him. He couldn’t bear to see the condemnation in her eyes, to watch her turn away from him in disgust. Despise him.

He nearly choked on the revelation.

How could he look Mia in the face—a woman so courageous she forged ahead no matter the odds, a woman who never let fear hold her back—and admit his selfishness, confess the failure that had shadowed his world a dull gray for ten years?

If he didn’t explain, he’d lose her for sure.

If he did, he could lose her anyway.

He clenched his jaw. After his debriefing and testing, he’d been commended and offered a promotion and a dangerous, intriguing new case half a world away. Two very different futures. Two very different possible outcomes.

My choice
.

The sun flared bold and bright, burning into his eyes—releasing him from his obligation to Tyler-Anne. Stretching stiff limbs, rolling tight shoulders, he tugged his cell from his pocket and dialed the D.C. office.