Night Shield (22 page)

“Ouch,” he said.

“Put that drink down, you’re going to the hospital.”

He kept his eyes on hers, lifted the brandy. Sipped. “No.”

“No, my butt. What is this? Some idiot, male, macho deal? You’ve been shot.”

“Not really. Grazed is more the accepted term. Now, if you don’t mind, Will’s got a kinder touch with this than you. I’d like him to finish so he can go home.”

“It could get infected.”

“I could get hit by a truck, but I don’t intend for either to happen.”

“It’s okay, Ally, really.” Playing peacemaker, Will patted her shoulder before picking up the gauze again. “I cleaned it real good. We got some worse in the old days, didn’t we, Jonah?”

“Sure did. Looks like I’m another scar up on you now.”

“Well, isn’t that nice?” Ally grabbed the brandy, glugged.

“I thought you hated brandy.”

“I do.”

“Why don’t you get a glass of wine,” Will suggested. “I’m nearly done here.”

“I’m fine. I’m okay.” Ally blew out a breath. Now, she thought, after everything, her hands wanted to shake. “Damn it, Blackhawk. I was probably the one who shot you.”

“Probably. I’ve decided to weigh in the circumstances and not hold it against you.”

“That’s real big of you. Now, listen to me—”

“Frannie went home with Beth,” he added, wanting to distract her. “She’s okay. Shaky yet, but okay. She wanted to thank you, but you were busy.”

“There we go.” Will stepped back. “Your arm’s in a lot better shape than your shirt. I’d say that’s a loss.” He held up the bloodstained linen and made Ally’s stomach turn over. “Want me to go up and get you a fresh one before I go?”

“No. Thanks.” Jonah lifted his arm, flexed. “Nice job. Haven’t lost your touch.”

“All in a day’s work.” Will picked up his discarded jacket. “You sure stand up, Ally. Could’ve been an awful mess out there tonight. But you sure stand up.”

“All in a day’s work.”

“I’ll lock up. ’Night.”

Ally sat at the table, waited until she heard silence. “Okay, smart guy, what the hell were you thinking? You interfered with a police operation.”

“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe I was thinking that lunatic was going to kill you. It bothered me.” He held out the brandy snifter. “How about a refill, since you drank mine?”

“Fine. Sit here and swill brandy and look stoic.” She shoved back, grabbed the glass, then gave in and wrapped her arms around his neck. “Don’t
ever
scare me like that again.”

“I won’t if you won’t. No, just stay right there a minute.” He turned his face into her hair, breathed deep. “I’m going to see you stepping in front of that gun for a long time. That’s hard.”

“I know. I know it is.”

“I’ll deal with that, Ally, because that’s the way it is.” He drew her back, his eyes intense on hers. “There are some things you need to figure out if you can deal with. If you want to deal with.”

“What are they?”

He rose to get the brandy himself, poured, set the bottle on the table. “Are there still cops in my place?”

“Other than me?”

“Yeah, other than you.”

“No. We’re clear.”

“Then sit down.”

“Sounds very serious.” She pulled up her chair. “I’m sitting.”

“My mother left when I was sixteen.” He didn’t know why he started there. It just seemed to be the spot. “I couldn’t blame her, still don’t. My father was a hard man, and she was tired of it.”

“She left you with him?”

“I was self-sufficient.”

“You were sixteen.”

“Ally. I was never sixteen the way you were. And I had your father.”

Everything inside her softened. “That’s a lovely thing to say.”

“It’s just fact. He made me go to school. He came down on me when I needed it, which was most of the time. And he was the first person in my life to ever tell me I was worth anything. To ever see I might be. He’s … I don’t know anyone who comes up to him.”

She reached across the table, took his hand. “I love him, too.”

“Let me get through some of this.” He squeezed her hand, then drew his away. “I didn’t go to college, even Fletch couldn’t browbeat me into that. I took some business courses because it suited me. When I was twenty, my father died. Three packs of cigarettes a day and a general meanness catches up with you. It was long and ugly, and when it was over, the only thing I felt was relief.”

“Is that supposed to make me think less of you?”

“There’s a contrast here, and you see it as well as I do.”

“Yeah, you had a lousy childhood. I had a great one. As fate would have it, we both got lucky and ended up with Boyd Fletcher as a father. Don’t look at me like that. That’s exactly what he is to you.”

“I’m going to make something clear to you before this goes any farther. I wasn’t a victim, Allison. I was a survivor, and used whatever methods worked. I stole and cheated and conned, and I don’t apologize for it. Things would’ve turned out differently if I hadn’t had your father hounding me. But they didn’t.”

“I think that was my point.”

“Don’t interrupt. I’m a businessman. I don’t steal or cheat because I don’t have to. That doesn’t mean I don’t play the game my way.”

“A real tough guy, aren’t you? Blackhawk, you’re a fraud. Cool customer, slick hands, icy stare. And this big, soft heart. Soft, hell, it’s gooey.”

Amused at the speechless shock on his face, she got up, sauntered to the fridge and hunted up an open bottle of white wine.

She wasn’t tired anymore, she realized. She was revved.

“Do you think I didn’t run you, pal? Run your friends, get the stories? You gather up your sick and wounded like a mama chick.”

Enjoying herself now, Ally drew out the stopper, found a glass. “Frannie—got her off the streets, got her clean, gave her work. Will—straightened him up, paid off his debts before he got his knees capped, gave him a suit and some dignity.”

“None of that’s relevant.”

“I’m not finished.” She poured the wine. “The iceman got Beth into a women’s shelter, bought her kids presents from Santa Claus when she didn’t have the money or the energy to deal with it. Jonah Blackhawk was buying Barbie dolls.”

“I did not buy dolls.” That was going just a little too far. “Frannie did. And it has nothing to do with this.”

“Yeah, right. Then there’s Maury, one of your line chefs.” She sat down, wiggled into the chair and propped her feet up. “And the dough you lent him—and I use the word
lent
advisedly—to help his mother through a bad patch.”

“Shut up.”

She merely smiled, dipped a finger into her wine, licked it. “Sherry, the little busgirl, who’s working her way through college. Who paid her tuition last semester when she couldn’t scrape it together? Why, I believe it was you. And what about Pete the bartender’s little problem last year when an uninsured driver totaled his car?”

“Investing in people is good business.”

“That’s your story, you stick to it.”

Irritation and embarrassment warred for top gun inside him. He tossed his weight to the side of irritation. “You’re ticking me off, Allison.”

“
Ooooh
, really?” She leaned forward, leading with her chin. “Go ahead, hard case, slap me around and shut me up. Dare you.”

“Be careful.” He said it, meant it, then pushed to his feet. “This is irrelevant and isn’t getting us anywhere.”

She crossed her ankles and made clucking noises.

“You’re really asking for it.”

“Yeah, yeah. I’m shaking. Sucker.”

He cracked and lifted her right off the chair. “One more word. I swear, it’s only going to take one more word.”

She bit him, one quick nip on his already tender mouth. “Softy.”

He pushed her aside and spun toward the door.

“Where you going?”

“To put on a damn shirt. I can’t talk to you.”

“Then I’ll just have to rip it off you again. I’ve got a soft spot for wounded tough guys with gooey centers.” And laughing, she launched herself at him, landed piggyback. “I’m crazy about you, Blackhawk.”

“Go away. Go arrest somebody. I’ve had enough of cops for one day.”

“You’ll never get enough of me.” She bit his earlobe, his shoulder. “Come on, shake me off.”

He would have. He told himself he could have. It was just his bad luck he looked down and saw the scar in the floor. From a bullet meant for her.

He dragged her around, yanked her against him so hard, so fast, she swore her ribs knocked together. His mouth was on hers, fused there with a heat borne of desperation.

“Better. Much better. Here, Jonah. Now. We both need to make it right again. I need you to love me. Like our lives depended on it.”

He was on the floor with her, without any thought but to prove to himself that she was whole and safe and alive beneath him.

The cool, hard surface of the floor might have been a feather bed or clouds or the jagged, unforgiving peaks of a mountain. Nothing mattered but that she was wrapped around him, that her
breath was fast and hot against his skin, that her heart beat like wild wings against his.

All the fear, the tension, the ugliness poured out of her when he touched her. Her hands tangled with his, fighting to strip away boundaries. Until they were free to drive together.

When he filled her—temper, passion, desperation—it was like coming home.

His breath was in rags, his system spent, and still he rocked against her.

“Just hold me a minute more.” She pressed her face against his shoulder. “Just hold me.” But she felt the warm wetness on her fingers and pulled away. “Damn it. You’re bleeding again. Let me fix it.”

“It’s fine. It’s all right.”

“It’ll only take a minute.”

“Ally, leave it be.”

The snap of his voice had her eyes narrowing. “Don’t think you can step back from me now. Don’t think you’ll get away with it this time.”

“Just get dressed.” He pushed back his hair and began to follow his own orders.

“Fine.” She snatched at clothes, dragged them on. “You want to go another round, we’ll go another round. You stupid son of a bitch.”

He heard the tremor in her voice, cursed her. Cursed himself. “Don’t cry. That’s playing dirty.”

“I’m not crying. You think I’d cry over you?”

He could feel his heart start to shatter as he brushed a tear off her cheek with his thumb. “Don’t.”

She sniffled, flicked her hands over her face to dry it and sneered. “Sucker.”

Fury whipped into his eyes and scalded her. She couldn’t have been more delighted. She got to her feet before he did, but it was close.

“You’re in love with me.” She punched her fist against his chest. “And you won’t admit it. That doesn’t make you tough, it makes you hardheaded.”

“You weren’t listening to me before.”

“You weren’t listening to me, either, so we’re even.”

“Listen now.” He grabbed her face with both hands. “You have connections.”

“Why, you insulting …” She wondered why the top of her head didn’t fly off. “How dare you talk about my family’s money at a time like this.”

“I don’t mean money.” He jerked her up to her toes, then dropped her back on the flat of her feet again. “Now who’s stupid? Money’s nothing. I don’t give a damn about your portfolio. I have my own. I’m talking about emotional connections. Foundations, roots, for God’s sake.”

“You have your own there, too. Frannie. Will. Beth. My father.” She waved a hand, settling down again. “But I get you. You’re saying, basically, that someone like me, who comes from the kind of place I come from, should hook herself up with a man who, say, comes from a good, upstanding family. Probably upper-middle-class. He should have a good education and hold a straight job. A profession. Like, say, a lawyer or a doctor. Is that the theme here?”

“More or less.”

“Interesting. Yes, that’s interesting,” she said with a considering nod. “I can see the logic in that. Hey, you know who fits that bill to a tee? Dennis Overton. Remember him? Stalker, tire slasher, general pain in the ass?”

She’d turned it around and boxed him into his own corner. All he could do was steam.

“Don’t cop to excuses, Blackhawk, if you haven’t got the guts to tell me how you feel about me, and what you want for us.”

She flipped her hair back, tucked in her shirt. “My work is done here. See you around, pal.”

He got to the door before she did. He was good at that. But this time he slapped a hand on it, held it
closed while she glared at him. “You don’t walk until we’re finished.”

“I said I was finished.” She jerked on the door.

“I’m not. Shut up and listen.”

“You tell me to shut up one more time, and—”

He shut her up. One hard, exasperated kiss. “I’ve never loved another woman. Never even came close. So cut me a damn break here.”

Her heart did a lovely bounding leap. But she nodded, stepped back. “Okay. Spill it.”

“You hit me between the eyes the first minute you walked in the room. I still can’t see straight.”

“Well.” She backed up, slid onto a stool. “I’m liking this so far. Keep going.”

“You see that? That right there.” He stabbed a finger at her. “Anyone else would want to deck you.”

“But not you. You love that about me.”

“Apparently.” He crossed to her, laid his hands on the bar on either side of her. “I love you, so that’s it.”

“Oh, I don’t think so. Make me a deal.”

“You want a deal? Here it is. You ditch the apartment and move in, officially, upstairs.”

“Full gym and sauna privileges?”

Half the knots in his stomach loosened when he laughed. “Yeah.”

“So far, I can live with it. What else are you offering me?”

“Nobody’s ever going to love you like I do. I guarantee it. And nobody’s ever going to put up with you. But I will.”

“Same goes. But that’s not enough.”

Those wonderful eyes narrowed on her face. “What do you want?”

She rested her back against the bar. “Marriage.”

Now those narrowed eyes darkened. “Do you mean that?”

“I say what I mean. Now, I could ask you, but I have to figure that a guy who makes a habit of opening doors for women and buying Christmas presents for little children—”

“Leave that part alone.”