Tall, Dark and Lethal (15 page)

Bailey might already be dead.

The thought hit him harder than a live wire, snapping him back into the present. Smith took advantage of that split second and got on top, pinning Cade against the bars of a basement window.

He heard a window blow somewhere behind them. Smith did, too, and tried to move away from the cascade of glass. Now Cade held him in place, turning the tables. The flames roared behind the glass. But nothing happened.

“Luck is with me,” Smith hissed between his teeth.

But the triumphant smile on his face didn’t get a chance to settle in. The window behind him blew the next second, showering them with glass as flames shot out. Cade had protective gear on. Smith had nothing.

He shoved the man off as Smith struggled with his burning clothes. Given another second or two, Cade could have finished him off and had his revenge. Revenge had been his first thought when he’d woken after lung surgery. It had been the reason he had stayed alive. It had been the promise he’d made Pachi as the kid screamed, dying.

But now, instead of killing the bastard, Cade ran in the direction of the truck by the stairs.

Smith could make it. Burns or not, he had a fair chance. Someone could come around the corner and douse him, saving his sorry ass without ever knowing that he was saving a cold-blooded killer who was responsible for the murder of dozens. Smith was a wily bastard. If there was a way to escape this hell, he would find it. Then someday he would come back for Cade again.

But Cade didn’t even look back to check on the man. Bailey was his only thought now, getting to her in time. He went around the back and saw the truck still in place. A fireman stood at the very top of the ladder, pouring water in a broken window with a hose.

Cade climbed up behind him.

The man was focused enough on what he was doing that he didn’t notice anything until Cade already had a leg over on the fire escape.

The guy shouted after him, “It’s ready to melt!”

Cade ignored the warning and swung his other leg over, putting his full weight on the structure, which had gotten considerably less stable since he and Bailey had climbed it. Coming back this way was not an option. He spoke into the microphone inside his helmet. “Two jumpers up front. Start pumping the air bag.” He climbed the rickety structure as fast as he could.

Damn, he was too old for this, he thought as he struggled over the edge. The suit weighed a ton. But he immediately forgot that when he couldn’t spot Bailey. He rushed forward, searching. And there she was, rolled up in a ball, in the cover of a vent stack.

He crossed the roof in no time, pulling her up and putting the oxygen mask on her face. “They’re waiting for us at the front.” He picked her up when her knees buckled. Then they were on the edge at last, and he set her down to slip the mask off. He dropped it and shook off the tank, not wanting it to injure either of them.

The air bag waited below, insanely small and only partially inflated. Smoke and fire rolled at their backs. Fear flashed in her eyes as she held him in a death grip.

He pulled off the asbestos gloves so he could fully take her hand. “Take it easy. A few more minutes and we are out of here.”

“If we make it…I was thinking while I waited, could you bring Pachaimani and his sister to the States? If you have to leave for work, I could keep an eye on them. Maybe Zak and Pachaimani could be friends. I think it might be good for both of them. Is that what you promised him? To get them out?”

Oh, man. He didn’t want to go there, not now. He couldn’t tell Bailey that he had promised Pachaimani to bring David Smith’s black heart and lay it on the kid’s grave. How he had shouted that to the boy as the kid had been trapped in the basement of the mansion with his sister, burning, while Cade was lying not ten feet from the barred door, choking on his own blood, his chest all torn up with shrapnel, and David Smith was up on that damned marble patio, just looking on and laughing.

The powers that be had considered the mission a great success. The money transfer had been stopped, and the terrorist group in question had been delivered a serious blow. Ruvaraj was dead.

He considered the day his worst failure, his worst nightmare—the one op he would never get over.

“Pachi is gone. They’re dead.” The smoke brought tears to his eyes, but he could still see Bailey’s face go white under all the soot.

She leaned against him, nestling her face in the crook of his neck. Her tears felt wet against his skin. She was scared to death, in mortal danger, and crying for a couple of kids she’d never met, offering him comfort.

“Want to hear something insane?” He buried his nose in her smoky hair instead of looking down.

An air bag took ten minutes to inflate. Theirs had another five to go. Except that they couldn’t hang out up here that long. He needed to calm Bailey for the jump, to get her thinking about something other than how dangerous their escape was going to be.

If the jump didn’t go well, what was the one thing he would wish he had told her?

“It happened.”

She looked up. “What?” Her voice shook.

“I fell in love.” He dipped his head and brushed his sooty lips over hers. “I wish—”

She wouldn’t let him finish. “I love you, too, Cade. Whatever happens.” She squeezed his hand as they stepped off the ledge.

Cade sat by the lake, watching Bailey walk toward him on the sand, her cell phone stuck to her ear. He tucked Joey’s wedding invitation back into the pile of mail next to him to share with her later. He never grew tired of watching her. She still took his breath away at every turn and he had a feeling it would stay that way to the end.

She came over, ready to slip into her beach chair next to his, but he reached out and grabbed her by the waist, bringing her down on top of him. He loved the way their bodies fit together. His was saluting hers already. It’d been at least two hours since they’d made love in the water.

She stifled a squeal as she said, “Bye, then,” and hung up. She settled against him with a contented sigh, which warmed his heart like nothing ever had. “Zak wants to know if he can come down in a few weekends, when the house is finished.”

“Are you crazy? I’m retired. My heart can’t take looking after that kid. He needs a full commando unit to keep him out of trouble.”

Which he was getting, sort of. Carly had taken to him, having been a misunderstood child genius herself. So she kept an eye on him remotely, and they kept in touch through the Internet. Carly was as bad as a full commando unit if she wanted to be. Badder.

Bailey lifted a sexy eyebrow. “You’re only forty.”

“Yeah, but think of the tough times I’ve been through, the neighbors I’ve had.” He paused for effect. “Of course he can come.”

“I guess, then, since you’re retired and all that, you probably want to rest.” She pulled away, but mischief twinkled in her beautiful blue-violet eyes.

“We can rest after.” He pulled her right back, closer, and nibbled the soft skin of her neck.

“After what?” She played the innocent.

He made a rumbling sound in the back of his throat. “After we shake the shack.”

She giggled.

Man, it was good to see her happy and carefree. He was going to make it his mission to keep her that way for as long as he lived. He’d kept her close through that hair-raising jump from the burning building and insisted on riding in the same ambulance with her and Zak to get checked out.

The Colonel had smoothed the way with the FBI. There had been an investigation, but it had been kept civilized. They had, however, put the fear of God in Zak. Which was fine with him. The kid needed to grow up to his skill level.

“It’s hardly a shack.” She glanced back at his house overlooking Lake Harmony, sitting on six acres of peaceful, private land, which was now fully secured with the best gadgets a man could get. He didn’t take chances with the love of his life, no, sir. Not that any imminent danger threatened.

Smith had been caught at the burning building and been lumped in with the terrorists, who were part of a tribal group that played a large part in the African gun trade and stood to lose millions and considerable territory if peace was restored. Cade was the only person who knew the true reason why Smith had been there, and he wasn’t about to tell the Feds. It wasn’t a bad thing, Smith rotting in prison for the rest of his life. The bastard was facing charges of terrorism and was looking at life in a high-security prison as soon as he recovered from the burns on sixty-five percent of his body.

But Cade would have been lying if he said he wouldn’t have liked to put the guy’s lights out permanently. Personally. The urge still came from time to time, along with the knowledge that if he really wanted to, he could get to the bastard.

He would never forget Pachi.

But in the still of the night, with Bailey in his arms, his thoughts of revenge were more and more frequently supplanted by thoughts that he had to let go of the past. The best way to fight death was to live, and he planned on doing just that.

As a late surprise gift for his retirement, Nick and Joey had gone on an unofficially approved mission—meaning the Colonel had threatened them only with court-martial instead of a firing squad—to Indonesia and had taken care of the last two men who still had a price on Cade’s head. He no longer had to hide out at his uncle’s place. A good thing since the contractor was dragging his feet getting started on it.

At least he’d been able to talk Bailey into staying with him here in the meanwhile. “So you like the house?”

“Love it.”

“Enough to stay here with me forever? You can have the apartment on top of the garage for your workshop.” They’d only been here for three months, and he already had a dozen wooden sunflowers dotting his otherwise pristine front lawn. And about a dozen garden flags. The woman couldn’t help herself.

“Forever?” She drew back, growing serious.

“Forever.”

A slow smile began to spread on her face. “What if I
didn’t
like your house?”

“I have other houses.” He kissed her with all the passion he felt for her. “Let’s make beautiful garden art together for the rest of our lives.”

That he should be so nervous waiting for her answer was damned disconcerting.

She seemed to be considering his idea. “I might move on to other hobbies eventually.”

Thank God for that.

“Such as?” He kissed her throat. Nobody said he had to play fair.

“Tantric sex.” She laughed, proving that she could hold her own in a dirty fight.

He shifted so she ended up under him. “You’re killing me here.”

“You make me believe in impossible things, like love.” She smiled at him.

“You make me believe in impossible things, like leaving the past behind and becoming an ordinary man.”

“You didn’t hear that from me, that’s for sure.” She took his face between her hands. “Cade Palmer, you’ll never be an ordinary man. But you’re a good man. And I love you for that. Among other things,” she added with a teasing smile after a moment.

“Will you marry me?” he asked, sliding his hands under her T-shirt, over her velvet skin, losing himself in the moment of anticipation, in the feel of her under his hands. He buried his face in her long, smooth neck. “I should warn you. I’ll probably want kids.”

“Boys like their daddy?” Her voice had gratifyingly weakened.

“Sweet little girls like their mom. And maybe one boy. Will you marry me?” he asked again, his mouth hovering over hers. “Have I mentioned that this is a very, very private beach?”

She wrapped her arms and legs around him and pressed those incredible lips of hers against his at last. “Yes.”

ISBN: 978-1-4268-2560-6

TALL, DARK AND LETHAL

Copyright © 2008 by Dana Marton

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