Operation Swift Mercy (30 page)

“I know, but when am I ever going to get the opportunity to feel you up in front of the Doc again?” Tupper replied and Chase gritted his teeth against
rising to the bait. Deep down he knew Tupper was only mucking around, but coming so close to losing the woman he loved, he was not in the mood for Tupper’s crap right now.

Settling her back in his arms once more, he ignored her protesting that she could walk and carried her down the track towards the old bunk house. Tupper was on his way to get the jeep from where it was left back at his place and pick them up, but until then, he was going to get her inside and warm.

He glanced up as Tate and Del came inside, and saw Mercy smile a warm welcome. After checking she was alright, Tate informed them there was a police boat on its way—although it wouldn’t be here till the early hours of the morning. They’d camp out in the bunk house overnight to guard the cave and preserve the evidence until the police arrived to conduct their investigations
.

“Willow’s managed to get in touch with her contacts and they’re sending someone
from ASIO
over to liaison with the local police over Nikkos and figure out what to do with him.” Del told them
, pocketing his phone
.

Mercy
immediately blanched
. “Oh my God! Summer and Willow…the kids? Are they okay?”

“They’re fine—they were picked up by a neighbour out fishing.
Summer told us what you did,” Tate said coming to stand beside Mercy’s chair. “You saved my family’s life. Thank you.”

Mercy swallowed, and looked as though she were struggling to hold herself together
.
“If it wasn’t for me none of you would have been involved in this mess in the first place.”

“
Don’t worry about it—wo
uldn’t be the first time we found ourselves in the wrong place at the right time,” Tate shrugged.

“Well, Summer and Willow didn’
t make it very easy. Y
our wives are very stubborn women,” she said with a wobbly smile directed at both Tate and Del.

“I know, right?” Del said with a shake of his head, dragging a smile from her briefly.

The sound of the jeep approaching had Chase on his feet and ready to scoop her up out of her chair, but she held a hand up and stopped him with a frown. “I can walk. I’m not a complete
basket case
.”

He felt helpless when he wasn’t doing something and now that the danger had passed, he was beginning to buckle under the guilt that he hadn’t been here she’d needed him the most.

He put a hand around her waist, she could complain all she liked, but he needed to touch her and if she wouldn’t let him carry her—he  was at least going to help her…weather she liked it or not.

“Ah, here’s a strange question,” Tupper said, coming around the front of the jeep when he pulled up. “How did you get to the cave?”

Chase eyed Tupper oddly, what was he on about now?

“
On that old quad bike that was in the shed
.” He heard Mercy reply and suddenly he was swapping confused glances with the other men too.

“What?” Mercy asked nervously, as she eyed each one in turn.

Chase paused, wondering how to answer. Maybe she’d hit her head at some point…could she be suffering some kind of effect from her previous head injury?

“Chase? What?”

“We found that old relic in Sparkies hanger and had it stored in the shed to get around to fixing it up someday.”

When she looked as though she were trying to work out if they were angry with her for taking it or something else, Chase hurried to explain. “Baby, that quad hasn’t started in decades.
Sparkie had it pulled to pieces—it’s not even put together properly.
It’s not driveable,” he added gently.

“Are you saying I’m lying?”

“No, but there’s no way you could have driven that thing all the way out here,” he added, suddenly wondering what the hell he was actually saying and realising if she hadn’t been able to drive it then how the hell had she got it out here?

The other men were silent, none of them game to voice what they were all considering, out loud.

“Alright, I’ll come out and say it first—this thing is beyond freaky and this is why I can’t wait to get off this damn island and head back to base where I can take a God damn rest,
”
Tupper said with a disgusted shake of his head.

“Wait. What are you saying?”

“I’m saying
sweetheart,
that there was no way you should have been able to start that thing and drive it and you obviously did. There’s been weird things happening on this island since old Sparkie  died and I don’t care what anyone else says—he’s still here and that freaks me the hell out,” Tupper said giving a shudder as he walked back to get into the driver’s side of the jeep.

“
You’re saying that a ghost helped me escape?”
S
he eyed the men sceptically? And Chase saw her expression falter slightly when no one denied it.

“Of course not, it’s just Tupper over reacting as usual—come on let
’
s you get home,” Chase said, moving her towards the jeep and sending a thunderous glare towards the other men in warning not to argue here and now the possibility
of  Sparkie becoming some kind of grouchy guardian angel.

Chapter
Twenty-Four

Mercy refused Summer’s offer to stay at the main house that night
.
Once she knew they were safe and hugged them all tightly, still shaken at how terribly bad things could have gone, she was too exhausted and
just
longed for the solitude of Chase’s cabin.

Chase helped her into the cabin and sent her in to take a shower while he took phone calls and
liaised
with Tate and Del back at the main house. Under the hot water,
Mercy began scrubbing at the filth and grim her cave exploring had acquired, then
suddenly,
began to cry. The tears started out as a trickle, lost in the flow of water from the shower,
but soon grew into raking sobs. She couldn’t stop once she started, but soon strong arms wrapped around her and she felt Chase stepping into the shower stall behind her, cradling her, and holding her while she continued to cry.

“It’s okay baby, let it out. It’s shock—I’m here,” she heard him croon softly against her ear.

She had no idea how long they stood there in the shower—it could have been hours or mere minutes, but when they eventually stepped out and Chase wrapped a thick soft towel around her, she felt as though she’d just ran a damn marathon. They didn’t bother getting dressed, Chase simply dried them both off and pulled up the blanket to cover them, the last thing Mercy remembered was Chase pulling her close against him, his body tucked around hers securely and knew she had never felt so loved and cherished in all her entire life.

****

The few days that followed were bedlam. Red tape and cross country jurisdiction was proving to be a complete nightmare. Thankfully, Willow
’
s lawyer friend had already started proceedings and
with the
evidence and becoming Mercy’s council made things a lot easier to deal with. The case itself was black and white—they had the evidence and they knew why Nikkos had come looking for her, but the rest of the case had begun to spiral out of control, just as Willow had predicted
; as G
overnment officials and corrupt businessmen back in Australia began bailing ship.

With t
he case against Nikkos and what he’d been involved
in,
growing by the day
and with
no end in sight in the near future
, h
er lawyer needed her to return to Brisbane sooner than expected.

“You’ve been quiet today,” Chase said as they sat together on the end of the jetty watching the sun set. It had been another frustrating day of phone calls and conferences and trying to organise flights and travel arrangements.

“It’s all gotten a little overwhelming, I guess,” she said quietly.

“We need to talk,” Chase said, taking her hand into his.

Mercy had managed to avoid spending too much time alone with Chase since the night he’d rescued her. In that regard, she was relieved there was so much going on to keep them busy.
Ever since she returned to the cabin, she’d found herself doing a lot of thinking.

Everything had changed. The moment she discovered she was pregnant—her whole life as she had once known it, ended.

She was going to have a baby.
A baby whose father had tried to kill her. A baby whose father was now, a dead criminal.
Tears welled in her eyes once more as she wished things could have been different. Why couldn’t her baby have been fathered by someone as kind and wonderful as Chase
?
She blinked rapidly, she couldn’t keep crying like this. Chase told her it was normal—but she suspected it had more to do with her hormones than her recent trauma—still it was easier to just go along with his assumption.

She hadn’t told him.

Summer had pulled her aside the day after the attack and tried to make her talk about it. There hadn’t been time to process anything rationally during their time in the storm shelter, and she knew Summer was worried about her after her rescue, but Mercy refused to be drawn into conversation about any of it. All she asked was that Summer keep it to herself. She wasn’t sure yet what she was going to tell
C
hase—if she were even going to tell him at all.

“They booked my flight home today,” she said, figuring the best way to tell him, was to just …tell him.
She couldn’t look at him
, and
his silence spoke volumes.
“They need me to testify and there’s a billion other things that have cropped up with all the new evidence they’re unearthing.” She was rambling and she couldn’t stop, because if she did, he might say something she wasn’t ready to deal with on top of all this…

“I love you Mercy.”

Like that
, she sighed, closing her eyes tightly against the pain in her heart.

“Did you hear me?” H
e asked when she didn’t reply.

She managed a nod, but still couldn’t look at him.

“I’m not re-upping—when I go back I’m going to start making plans to get out at the end of the year.”

At this she
lifted
her head, staring at him in disbelief. “What?”

“I’m getting out at the end of the year. I want to make a life with you—here. Or in Australia,” he added quickly when she stared at him in horror.

“You can’t!”

She saw him frown, confused by her reaction and she pulled her hand from his and got to her feet. “You can’t do that for me. You love your career.”

“I love you, more,” he shrugged, standing beside her.

Mercy shook her head miserably. “We barely even know each other, Chase. This isn’t love—it’s some kind of adrenalin fu
e
l
l
ed emotion, based on the fact you saved my life—more than once
,
and you feel responsible for me.”

“You think I don’t know how I feel?”

“I think you’re confusing what you feel.”

“So you’re saying you don’t feel the same way?”
H
e asked slowly, watching her face intently.

“I’m saying it’s too soon to say this is real—nothing about the last few weeks has been normal—for all we know we may not even like each other once life returns to boring and normal—when no madman is trying to kill us,” she
said, trying
to soften it with a joke, but judging by the way his jaw was set, he wasn’t in the mood.

“We have until the end of the year before we can do anything permanent, but we can visit and get to know each other in more, normal circumstances. It’s not like we’ll be rushing anything.”

Oh yeah—sure, and by then she’d be a whale and unable to travel.
It brought home the fact that this was not Chase’s problem.
She
was not Chase
’
s problem—not any more. What man could possibly want to bring up another man’s baby? And not just any other man—one who was a murdering, lowlife scum bag? She could
n’t
ask that of him and she couldn’t risk that he’d feel obligated to stand by her—the same way he’d felt obligated to take care of her back in the hospital when he should have done what anyone else would have done and walked away
.

“I’m leaving tomorrow, Chase. I think we should just say our goodbyes now and leave it at that.” Inside she felt as though she were crumbling apart, the wrongness of the whole statement was not lost on her—but what else could she do? She wouldn’t risk making this man chose the
right thing
to do and ruin his life, because she knew that’s the way he thought. He would sacrifice everything if he believed it was the
right
thing. She wouldn’t do that. There was someone else she had to think about now—someone who depended on her. She had to concentrate on making a life for this baby. She needed to stop depending on others. Chase simply didn’t understand the concept;
why
should she look after herself when he could do it
for
her?