Make Mine a Marine (81 page)

He tried to see his watch beneath his sleeve as they climbed over a pile of debris rock and down into the quarry. But the twisting motion to free his wrist earned him a second jab in the ribs. Drew grimaced but kept walking.

Fortunately, he had dressed for warmth that morning in his black work boots. The lug soles gave him traction on the snow-covered, sometimes icy rocks, while Clayton struggled to keep his footing in his slick-soled loafers. Jackson huffed and puffed with exertion behind him.

When they reached a plateau of relatively flat stone some twenty feet above the water line, Roylott stopped. He glanced over the edge, then back at Drew and Jackson. "This is as good a place as any.”  Clayton apologized, "Sorry about this, Cam."

Drew shifted to the balls of his feet and gritted his teeth in a false smile "Me, too."

He jammed his elbow into Jackson's gut, rammed his doubled fists into his gaping jaw. Startled by the attack, Jackson stumbled, dropping his gun into a crevice between the rocks.

Drew didn't wait for Clayton to make the decision to shoot. He lowered his shoulder and rammed him, knocking him off balance and sending his weapon flying off the ledge into the water below. Jackson ran up behind him, but Drew kicked out, hitting him in the chest with enough force to knock him off his feet. He crashed to the rocks, silent.

Clayton had squatted down, stretching his arm between the rocks to try to retrieve Jackson's gun. Drew looped his arms around his neck from behind and pulled up, strangling him with the knots that bound his wrists. Clayton's hands flailed in a token struggle, but within a minute, Drew had cut off his oxygen long enough for the man to pass out.

He didn't waste a moment checking for a pulse or savoring his triumph. He gasped hard, controlling his breath from the exertion, keeping himself from expelling too much oxygen and getting lightheaded. He ran to Jackson's crumpled body and searched through his pockets. He pulled out his keys and a pocket-sized hunting knife.

He paused only a moment to check his watch. One-twenty. "Damn."

Twenty minutes was a long enough head start for Jonathan Ramsey to get to Emma or Kerry first.

Drew hurried across the rocks, leaping where he had climbed before, trying to make up time.

Time.

The one element that had been stolen from him five years ago by an inexplicable twist of fate. Time with his daughter and friends. Time with the woman he loved.

He popped open the knife and sawed at his bindings when he hit flat ground. He'd cut himself free by the time he climbed into Jackson's car.

He had five years of a lost life that he intended to make up to those he loved.

But Ramsey had a twenty-minute head start.

Not Ramsey, Drew thought, starting the engine and spinning gravel behind his wheels as he raced onto the road.

The Chameleon. In Jonathan Ramsey's body. In
his
body.

The Chameleon had also had a twenty-minute head start on him down in the jungles of Tenebrosa. He'd run him down that time. He'd left the rest of his team behind when the opportunity had presented itself. He'd tracked the criminal down. Caught him in the heart of the jungle.

He'd blown himself to hell, losing everything.

In twenty minutes, he could lose everything all over again.

* * *

"Damn it, Jonathan, let her go! I'll give you whatever you want."

Emma's angry voice, tinged with a panic she refused to give in to, reached Drew through the trap door leading to the roof of the LadyTech building.

He climbed the ladder that took him from the top floor to the roof, cursing each rung as if it were a mile that separated him from Kerry and Emma. He'd wasted precious minutes calling Brodie and putting him on alert. He'd practically terrorized Kerry's dance teacher, demanding to know where his daughter was.

To hear that she'd been picked up by her
father
had eroded the last of Drew's cool reserve.

Finally, sheer luck and an insistent voice inside his head had steered him to LadyTech.
"Up!"
the voice had whispered, like an angel hovering at his shoulder.
"Go up. Quickly."

He'd driven the car onto the front sidewalk and ran into the building. He'd mounted the stairs two and three at a time. Now, he caught the top rung and pushed open the trap door. An icy wind hit him as he climbed onto the roof.

But that was nothing compared to the chill of seeing Jonathan Ramsey holding Kerry by the wrist and dragging her perilously close to the edge of the roof.

He stopped and laughed when he saw Drew. "Well, look who's here. You just refuse to die, don't you?"

"Drew!" Emma spared him a glance over her shoulder, her smoky eyes sharp with fear. Her breath came in short, shallow gasps, judging by the tiny clouds that puffed from her mouth in the cold air.

Her long hair whipped around her face as she turned her focus back to their precious daughter. "Kerry, sweetie. See? It's gonna be all right. Drew's here."

He stalked, quiet as a big cat, up beside her. He reached out and squeezed her shoulder in reassurance.

"What do you want, Ramsey?" challenged Drew.

"How about a happy reunion with my wife, and title to half of all she owns?"

"Never, you bastard." Emma might be terrified for Kerry, but she hadn't bowed out of this fight yet.

God, she was a magnificent woman. No wonder he loved her so much.

"Don't be too hasty, sweetheart. I'm the one with the power here."

Drew took advantage of the interchange and made eye contact with Kerry. She clutched Angelica tightly to her chest. Her big blue eyes swelled with fear, but she wasn't crying. She smiled back at him, telling Drew she was able to think and react. Good.

Suddenly Jonathan lifted Kerry by the wrist and dangled her over the edge of the roof, three stories above the paved parking lot below.

"Kerry!" Emma screamed.

"Don't struggle!" warned Drew, rushing forward. If she were to swing or kick, it could loosen Jonathan's grip on her.

"Back off!" At Ramsey's words, Drew froze in his tracks. Kerry was just out of reach. "It's cold up here," the villain sneered. "My fingers might grow numb."

Drew felt Emma's hands at his elbow, pulling him back. He put up both hands to placate Jonathan. "Put her back on the roof, and let's talk."

Kerry, eyes squeezed shut against her terror, hovered in the air a moment longer before Jonathan set her down in front of him. He wrapped an arm around her to keep her there.

"Tell us what you want," Drew prompted. His oath to kill this man had just become the sole goal for the rest of his life.

"Fifty-one percent of LadyTech. I already own a respectable portion of it, but I need a controlling interest."

"It's just a business." Emma pleaded with him, her eyes still on Kerry. "Take it."

"Don't sell yourself short, sweetheart. You've built quite an empire, with technology reaching into all parts of the world. Think how easily I could transmit information, rearrange funds, all within the boundaries of the law and international trade agreements. You've set up everything I need."

Emma shook her head, and Drew found himself admiring her once again. She'd been victimized by two horrible men in her lifetime, and still she came back fighting. "They don't allow criminals to run corporate empires. You'll be arrested in a heartbeat."

"I'm no criminal." Jonathan smiled. "I'm Lieutenant Colonel Jonathan Ramsey, American hero. They'll be flocking to congratulate me on my success." He turned his focus to Drew. "And once the authorities have recorded your broken body as that of the notorious Chameleon—with my helpful identification—there will be no one left to challenge me. No one to believe your bizarre story."

"What bizarre story?" Emma asked. Drew felt her gaze slide to him for an instant, then back to Kerry.

So it came down to this. He had to explain himself to Emma on a frozen rooftop while the life of his child sat like a bargaining chip on a negotiating table.

Drew exhaled deeply, watched the cold air turn his breath to vapor. The story he told held even less substance.

"I'm your husband. I'm Jonathan," he said simply. "He's the Chameleon. He has my body. I don't know how." He sought Emma's probing gaze, let the love that had brought him back to the world of living shine in his eyes. "It's me, lady. It's me."

A hushed voice rang sweet and clear in the cold, crisp air. "I believe in you, Daddy."

Emma's frown eased, and she backed up her daughter's words.

"I believe you."

The sun broke through the clouds, catching patches of ice with its light and reflecting with a blinding intensity in Drew's eyes. He raised his hand to his forehead to shield his gaze from its brilliance.

Emma, too, had turned her head to protect herself from the bright light. Kerry buried her face in Angelica's hair.

Jonathan alone seemed oblivious to the light.

"Isn't this touching?" he mocked. "At any rate, this sappy reunion won't mean anything in court. I can prove my identity beyond a shadow of a doubt. Can you?"

At first, Drew didn't realize the question was intended for him. He was still caught up in the light, mesmerized by the way the long shafts of sunlight seemed to gather in a ball and grow in size above Jonathan's head.

He didn't get a chance to answer. "My lawyer has drawn up a document calling for the immediate restructuring of your company. You'll buy back whatever shares you need, turn over your own, and make me senior partner in LadyTech."

"Fine." Emma murmured her agreement, transfixed by the gathering light, unable to look directly at Jonathan anymore. "Just let her go."

"Not until you sign the document. It would have been much easier if you'd simply accepted me as your husband, given what was due me." Jonathan rambled, unheeding, as the brilliance behind him began to lengthen and grow. "I even tried to have a little fun with you. It seemed like such a shame to let your beauty go to waste."

The nasty taunt of Jonathan's words registered, and Drew tore his gaze from the light. His glare must have shown his fury, for Jonathan jerked Kerry away, mere inches from a plunge to certain death.

"Let her go." Drew's voice was cold.

Jonathan laughed. "I'm feeling an incredible sense of deja vu, aren't you? You've found me out, discovered my true identity yet again, and you're still powerless to stop me."

The light took the shape of flowing robes and hair, and Drew recognized a friendly face from long ago. "I don't think so."

All at once, Jonathan turned, seeing the light for the first time, seeing the woman standing behind him. "What the…?"

Drew charged forward as Jonathan's startled retreat knocked Kerry over the edge.

A lifetime flashed before his eyes, and his heart hammered in his chest. He dove forward, snatching a fistful of coat, and slammed into the retaining wall. Kerry screamed as the pendulum effect swung her back into the wall. Angelica flew out of her hands.

But in the next breath, Emma was there, tall and strong. She grabbed Kerry by the arm and pulled her onto the roof and into her arms. Battered and bleeding, Drew pushed himself to his feet, reached out for his family, and jack-knifed backward as a hand jerked his coat.

"Drew!"

Emma's scream pierced his fog of fear as clearly as she had pierced his tortured dreams. He spun around and grappled with his nemesis. It seemed he stared into the very face of evil.

But Jonathan was already falling. He had latched his hands onto Drew's jacket. Now he laughed, insane with fear. "We'll both die again, Colonel!"

The two men tumbled over the edge. The white light swooped down, capturing one of the men in its arms, as all three crashed to the earth below.

Chapter
Sixteen

"Dear Lord, please. I can't go through this twice. I love him so. Please help him. Please."

"I owe that man my life a dozen times over. This is partly my fault. Give him a chance."

"Em deserves to know love again. Let them be a family."

"I don't normally go in for this kind of stuff. But if somebody's listening… do the right thing."

"Bring him back to us."

"He's a good man. Help him. Make him well."

"These people are hurting. Please give them comfort. Please give them what they need."

"This isn't fair, and you know it."

"Faith? Help my daddy. Please?"

Faith sat in the pew beside Kerry and listened to the prayers of a faithful wife, anxious friends and hardened men who had seen too much of life. She heard the honest expressions of anger, fear, and love. But most of all, the innocent plea of a trusting little girl made her heart ache and filled her with a determination to do what she could.

There was only one answer to all of their prayers, and she had the power to grant it.

But she didn't have the permission.

A warm whisper of light suddenly suffused Faith's unseen perch. She tipped her face to the rosy glow above her and quirked her brow into a skeptical arc. "Isn't that cheating?"

The light pulsed through her, filling her with heat, hope, and possibilities. "I can do that?" she asked, her doubt transformed into a smile of hope.

When the light flickered again, she pressed a kiss to the crown of Kerry's head and added a quick prayer of her own.

"This time, I promise to get it right."

Drew drifted through the gray fog, blind and deaf to the beeps and prods and hushed voices outside his hospital room.

Inside of him, vibrant memories and waking dreams kept him company in the eerie nothingness surrounding him.

Long, dark hair. Rich and sensual. Falling through his fingers like heavy silk. A husky voice, whispering to him in the darkest part of the night. Legs. So long and fine, a man couldn't even begin to describe them.

Sparkling laughter. Hero worship in clear blue eyes. Tiny, chubby fingers grasping his larger hand with the determination of a drill sergeant and the trust of a little girl for her daddy.

Such warmth and promise.

Home.

A distant memory. So close, yet so far out of reach.

Oh, how he wanted to go home.

Help me!
he cried in his mind.
Please, I've been gone too long. I want to go home
.

A high-pitched, erratic beep pierced the fog, burned a staccato intrusion inside his brain. He caught his breath but couldn't exhale. The air in his lungs grew stale. Every muscle in his body clenched. He screamed out in protest but there was no sound.

A loud explosion detonated in his mind.  A searing pain pierced his chest.  He was falling, falling. Then...

"Drew?"

A quiet voice whispered through the chaos. The hurtful sounds, the mindless pain receded.
"Drew?"

The sensation of floating relaxed his body, and suddenly he could breathe again. He inhaled deeply, feeling a cleansing draft of air. As he exhaled, he opened his inner eyes to the growing light beside him.

The light pinkened and took shape. It was that of a beautiful woman. Not his Emma, but someone equally gentle. She laid her hand over both of his and smiled.
"It's all right, Drew."

"I know you." She seemed familiar, yet he couldn't remember where they'd met.

"I've been with you a long time, Mr. Gallagher. Or should I call you Colonel Ramsey?"

"I'm Jonathan…"

He looked away and thought a moment. Drew? That name felt as comfortable as an old friend. But he'd called himself Jonathan.

"Jonathan." He rolled the name around his tongue, let it sink into his bones. Felt it resonate through the core of his being. "I'm Jonathan Ramsey."

He looked at the creamy-haired woman, bathed in a serene light that seemed to penetrate his skin and clear away the remnants of the fog. "You're the voice in my dreams."

In the back of his mind he heard the muffled sounds of urgent voices, smelled the sterile tang of stainless steel and antiseptic. But he was drawn to the light and her gentle smile. "Where am I? How long have I been here?"

"Your present body is in a hospital bed. The doctors and nurses are fighting to bring you back to the living."

"But I'm already dead." He shook his head, half a memory away from understanding. "I've been here before. The jungle… and a grenade."

"Those memories are part of your life, too."
She squeezed his hand to ease his confusion.
"Time works in funny ways here. The last time we met was five earthly years ago."

"Before the hospital in Tenebrosa." He ground the words through his teeth. Memories flooded a painful rush of knowledge and anger and regret into the recesses of his mind. "This is a different hospital.  I died before. On a mission. I left my men behind to pursue…" He drilled her with a look, knew that he had looked at her this hard and furiously once before. "You're an angel. You sent me back. Into the Chameleon's body."

Her face creased with a look of profound sorrow.
"I made an unforgivable mistake. And I have done all I can to make it up to you. I haven't been allowed to interfere directly, but I have watched over you and yours ever since."

"You're Kerry's friend."

Her frown eased.
"Yes, for as long as she believes in me. I'm your friend, too."

The sweetness of her voice moved like a balm through his soul. The rush of anger at the injustice, at the years he'd been robbed of, gave way to a stunning realization. "I fell in love with Emma all over again. First as Jonathan Ramsey, then as Drew Gallagher." He wiped the harshness from his voice. "You led me to her, didn't you?"

"I tried to make amends."

The incomprehensible was starting to make sense. "Those instincts of mine that kept bringing me back to her… you were guiding me."

"I had to read a lot of Drew Gallagher books to figure out how your mind worked."

He almost laughed at the odd idea of an ethereal being reading an old paperback novel. Had he really created a fictional personality for himself? Or had he simply chosen a character with a set of values and a heart that matched his own?

The angel spoke again.
"I knew Jonathan Ramsey would find his way back to the people he loved. And I knew you'd keep your promise to take care of the Chameleon. He was an evil man who knew no repentance. His second chance at life was more evil than his first. I thought he might be… different. Fortunately, he didn't survive the fall as you barely did. Now he has been properly dealt with.  You've righted a wrong that I created. Now I'm allowed to repay the favor."

A thin thread of hope lurched through his body, connecting him from this lighted plane back down to earth.

"I'm not going to die?"

"Emma, Kerry, and your friends are praying very hard that you don't."

"But Moriarty, whoever he is, took my body. And he's dead. How can I…?"

She shushed him, and he felt her gentle command like a hug of reassurance.
"Have faith in the power of love, Colonel. You and Emma are soul mates. You've loved each other from the moment your spirits first touched. A shrapnel wound or a blow to the head can never change that. Not even an angel's mistake can change that. A different body can never diminish the love you and Emma share."

"What are you saying? Can you send me back?"

"All you have to do is ask."

"I'm asking. I'm praying. Faith—that's your name, isn't it?—I want to go back. Please. Send me back."

"That's all I needed to hear."

* * *

Emma blinked, and a hot tear slid down her icy cheek. Her feet had gone numb from kneeling for so long. Kerry nestled at her side, dozing on and off at the late hour. And someone always held Emma's hand on the other side. BJ, Jas, Brodie, Hawk or Rafe. Even Kel. Their friendship was a blessing Emma had always cherished but never fully appreciated until this night. Occasionally, someone would urge her to take a short nap or get something to eat. But Emma stayed where she was. As long as she maintained her vigil at the hospital's chapel rail, she had hope that Drew would survive.

She loved him. As perfectly as she had loved Jonathan. And her guilt was no longer an issue, because deep in her heart she believed what her darling Kerry had known all along. Drew Gallagher was a good man. Her man. Their man.

Drew Gallagher and Jonathan Ramsey shared the same spirit. Their faces might be different, but their hearts were the same. Drew's honor, his sense of duty, were Jonathan's.

Her heart sank like a leaden weight in her chest at the prospect of losing the man she loved all over again.

"Please, God," she whispered, pouring her heart and soul into those two words. Kerry stirred beside her, and Emma automatically hugged her closer. "It's all right, sweetie. Faith's with us. She helped us before and she'll help us again. I believe in miracles."

A brush of something soft whispered across her cheek, drying the tear there. The unseen caress jolted through Emma's body, rousing her from her exhaustion.

In the still minutes before midnight, Emma felt the miracle of love reborn. Of a love that never dies.

She felt it in the tingle of her skin. She felt it in the pounding beat of her heart. She felt it deep in the grateful release of fear from her soul.

She turned where she knelt and saw him at the back of the hospital chapel. A battered and glorious warrior strode toward her with catlike grace and a fierce intelligence resting on his proud shoulders. She saw so much love, so much hope, shining in the emerald depths of Drew Gallagher's eyes.

* * *

Drew saw so much love, so much hope shining in the smoky blue depths of Emma's eyes that he nearly stumbled in his determination to reach her and share the miracle Faith had given him. He knew he'd never tire of watching Em unfold her long, sinuous body with that innate strength and elegance she possessed.

He heard the gasps and stunned whispers of his friends as he passed by them, but he had eyes only for Emma. For his wife.

Free of pain, his eager strides took him closer, close enough to see the sheen of tears in her eyes, close enough to see the trembling in her shoulders, close enough to…

"Daddy!"

Drew braced his feet to catch the airborne figure of the only other female to ever capture his heart. He hugged Kerry in his arms and planted a kiss at the crown of her beautiful, sable-dark hair. "Punkin," he whispered. "I love you. I thank you and Faith for believing in me."

She squeezed his neck and laughed. "See? I told you she was real." Kerry leaned back, and Drew pressed his lips together to keep from grinning at the serious expression on her face. "We can all be a family now, right?"

Emma's soft voice checked his answer. "The doctors said there'd been too much damage." She reached out and touched his chest, brushed her fingertips across his lips, threaded her fingers into the long hair at his shoulder. "Are you real?"

He lifted his gaze from her searching hand to the skeptical light in Emma's awestruck expression. "I'm real." He swallowed past the tremor in his voice. "I know it's impossible to believe, but it's me… Jonathan."

A tear spilled over her eyelashes. He feathered his fingers across her cheek and into the hair at her temple. He caught the tear with his thumb and brushed it away. "Don't cry on me, lady."

A brave smile trembled across her mouth. She rubbed her cheek into his hand and whispered, "I believe. Welcome home."

Dampness burned in his eyes as he leaned forward and kissed her. Their lips touched, and a feeling of absolute rightness swept through him. Her soft mouth opened, and the gesture of comfort became a greedy exchange of need. He felt her hands at his waist and he drew her into the crook of his arm, still kissing her, loving her with his heart wide open.

Several eons too soon, she ended the kiss. Doubt squeezed his heart in its fist. Could she not see him, love him, for the man he was inside?

He remembered countless battles, perilous missions, dangerous cases he'd endured. But nothing he had ever experienced in Jonathan Ramsey's body or Drew Gallagher's matched the fear gnawing at him now. Had he fought his way back from death to her a second time only to be pushed to arm's length?

"Emma?"

She wrapped her arms around his waist and snuggled close, easing his fear a bit. "I have a question to ask," she said.

"What's that?" An eternity passed by in a beat of silence.

"Do I call you Drew or Jonathan?"

"Just say you love me and the rest will work itself out."  He didn't dare breathe.

"I love you."

He released his apprehension on a whoop of joy.