The Bride Wore A Forty-Four (9 page)

She crept up the stairs, lifted the hidden
panel in the floor, and quietly climbed upward, into the dark
storage room.

Kira listened, her ear pressed to the closed
door. Not a sound came through. She reached into her boot in utter
darkness, unerringly closing her hand around the small, folding
knife and flicking the button that flipped the blade out, then
holding it in her teeth to keep her gun hands free. She pushed the
door open, very slowly, and crept into the living room. No one was
around. The front door stood partway open, the bedroom door was
closed.

She moved fast, across the open living room,
avoiding the broken glass that littered the floor. There was no
cover, nothing to duck behind, and she would be visible to anyone
outside who happened to be looking in, so speed was the only
option. Limit the chance of being glimpsed.

Outside, she could hear the men shouting to
each other as they searched the woods for her, though she couldn't
make out their words. She paused outside the bedroom door, again
listening, before slowly turning the knob and opening the door.

She sighed in relief when she saw no one
besides Michael in the room, then tensed as she realized the blade
was still in his hand.

He's been hurt a lot worse than that,
she thought involuntarily, and then a rush of memories came, one
after the other. Michael with a knife wound, a bullet hole, bruised
and broken from a hellish beating. Hell, he'd even been hit by a
car once.

She had to shake the memories away and focus
on what she needed to do. When she did, she saw that he was staring
at her, his face a mixture of relief, pain, and urgency. She closed
the door behind her and holstered her gun. Taking the knife in her
hand, she moved toward him, knelt, and quickly sliced through the
ropes at his ankles, then the ones at his wrists. She paused then,
her eyes on the blade through his hand, her hand hovering near it,
shaking a little.

He gripped the hilt before she could, and
gritting his teeth, jerked on the blade.

It didn't come out. His face was red, wet
with moisture. His eyes shut tight, jaw clenched. "It's too deep
into the chair. I can't get it with one hand. You've got to do it,
babe. Pull straight up, hard as you can. Don't hesitate."

"Hell." She folded her own knife and pocketed
it, then she closed her hands around the fat handle of the large
hunting knife. She put one foot on the wooden chair, wedging it
beside Michael's thigh. "On three," she told him. He nodded, braced
himself. "One, two—" She yanked as hard as she could, her stomach
convulsing as the blade came free so suddenly she almost fell over
backward. She dropped the blade, her gaze shooting to Michael's
hand as blood bubbled from the wound. He drew it to his waist and
held it there with the good hand. Kira lunged to the nearby
dresser, yanking open a drawer and taking the first piece of fabric
she felt inside, which turned out to be a small T-shirt. She
brought it to him, kneeling in front of him, beginning to tear it
into strips with her teeth.

"Baby, we gotta get out of here. You can play
nurse Nancy later." He took the shirt from her, twisting it quickly
around his hand as he got to his feet. He stumbled a little and she
gripped his arm, started toward the window.

"They'll be watching that way."

Even as he said it, she heard the men
returning through the front door. "Not now, they won't. Come on."
She tugged him toward the window, yanking a blanket from the bed
and throwing it over the sill so they wouldn't get cut on the
shattered glass.

He shoved her through first, then followed,
and then they were on the ground and running. She imagined the men
were already in the bedroom before they got five yards from the
window, but there was no time to look back, no way to judge whether
the trees they'd put between them were dense enough to hide them.
No way to know for sure whether the men were in pursuit.

Beside her, Michael ran, his gait uneven,
breathing labored. He clutched the wounded hand to his side as he
ran, and she knew he was hurting.

"This way," he said.

"That way's the lake."

"I know. They won't be looking there. Come
on."

She trusted him, had no idea what he had in
mind, but she trusted him. She always had. He would never let her
down the way her father had.

Kira stopped running. What the hell was that
supposed to mean? The way her father had?

Michael tugged her hand. "Come on, almost
there."

"Yeah." She shook off the thought the memory,
filed it away to be mulled over later, when they were safe.

They emerged from the trees near the
glistening lake's gently sloping shore. A boat rested there, far
from the cabin, and she wondered if this was yet another of
Michael's ingenious escape plans.

He grabbed the bow and shoved the boat into
the water. "Get in," he told her.

"You get in. And don't waste time arguing,
I'm not the one with a hole in my hand."

He got in. She shoved the boat farther into
the water, then she climbed into the boat with him, gripping the
oars, dipping them into the water, and pushing them farther, both
from the shore and from the house. Michael placed a cell phone call
to someone, naming a meeting spot and a time. Rescue, Kira thought,
was at hand.

"Easy" he said when he finished the call.
"Don't row too fast. And try to stay low. Get us around that bend
in the shoreline where we can't be seen from the cabin, and then
we'll make for the far side."

She nodded, and followed his instructions,
even while delivering a few of her own. "Rip that shirt up, and
bandage your hand. Your face is a mess, too. You need stitches,
Michael."

"Yeah, and probably a tetanus shot."

She shook her head. "You had one of those
summer before last, when that lowlife Farentino jabbed you in the
ass with that dirty meat hook."

She looked up slowly. He did, too. "You
remember that?"

She nodded. "I remember...more and more.
Little things, but entire incidents, instead of just snippets."

"What kinds of things?"

She shrugged.

"Tell me. I really want to know." He looked
around them. "Besides, they haven't seen us. We got nothing but
time now." He began tearing the shirt into strips and bandaging his
wounded hand.

Drawing a breath, she nodded. "Okay."

The rowboat drifted on its own, slowly but
steadily toward the far shore. She pulled the oars out of the
water, let them rest in the bottom of the boat, upper ends held in
the oarlocks. "Mostly, I remember things about us. Our wedding,
that came back to me clearly. And then...well, just us. Together.
Fighting, dodging bullets, laughing..." She averted her eyes before
she went on. "Making love."

He was staring at her. She felt his eyes on
her face, and chanced a look up. His eyes were warm, caring. "It's
okay," he said. "Don't be embarrassed. If you knew how hard it's
been for me not to just tell you..." He reached out, cupping her
cheek in his palm. "That you remember us, God, Kira, that means a
lot."

She covered his hand with hers. "To me, too.
I mean, for you to keep quiet, for my sake, even though it meant
watching me make plans to marry another man—" She frowned then.
"But that engagement to Peter—it was never real, was it? I was
playing him, it was a cover."

He nodded. "The marriage wouldn't have been
legit The license wasn't for real to begin with, and the plan was
for the troops to move in at the reception, when all Peter's
contacts would have been in one place. I never would have let it go
too far, Kira."

"But how could you know? I mean...I could
have slept with him, and you—"

His jaw went tight and his hand fell from her
face. "No."

She blinked and shook her head quickly. "I'm
not saying I did. I mean I'm pretty sure I didn't. I never,
but—"

"I know you didn't" He pushed his good hand
through his hair, shaking his head. "Look, that was too much to
ask, even for your health's sake. I couldn't risk you letting, that
guy touch you. Do you know how furious you would have been later
on, when you remembered that he was just a suspect? That it was all
a cover? No, Kira, I wasn't willing to risk that I've had
you...under surveillance this whole time."

A heat sizzled through her veins. An anger
that made no sense to the new Kira, but fit perfectly with the old
one. "You had someone watching me?"

"Not someone. Me," he said. "Your phones are
bugged, your bedroom's miked, your car is wired, there are cameras
all over the freaking place. You've barely been out of my sight
since you left the hospital, Kira. And yeah, I knew it would piss
you off. But not as much as my letting you sleep with a criminal
would have."

She closed her eyes. "You...you were watching
my most private moments."

"Come on, Kira. I'm your husband. I was
trying to protect you."

She heard his sigh and opened her eyes

"I know, I know," he said, "there's nothing
you hate more than being dependent on a man for anything, but
Jesus, I didn't see that I had any other choice."

He looked truly torn. She reached out a hand
to cover his. "No, I don't see that you did either."

He blinked, maybe shocked by that.

"What made me so determined never to be
dependent on anyone? Any man?'

He looked away, shrugged.

"Was I always that way?"

"No. Not always."

She gripped the oars, returning them to the
water, giving a few strokes to get them moving faster again. "I
keep getting...that it's something to do with my father. But the
only glimpses of memory I've had of him feel as if we were—close.
Really, really close."

He nodded. "You were. You and your dad were
almost inseparable."

"There's something else," she said.
"Something changed that, came between us, didn't it?"

Facing her squarely, Michael nodded.

"What was it, Michael?"

He hesitated, and she dropped the oars,
gripped his shoulders. "Come on, the memories are returning. This
is important, and it's not going to be too much for me to take.
What came between my father and me?"

Without blinking or flinching away, he
replied, "I did."

Kira frowned. "He...didn't approve of
us?"

"He forbade you to marry me. Told me to stay
away. He didn't want you working for the DEA in the first place,
much less married to it." He shook his head. "It was only out of
concern for you, Kira."

"But I married you anyway."

"In secret. We planned to tell your family
after we returned from Africa."

She nodded slowly.

"Your father told you he'd disown you if you
married me. You considered it a betrayal. After that, you
just...you changed. He hurt you badly, Kira, and, I don't know, for
a while there, it seemed like you expected me to do the same."

She nodded slowly. "I put up shields. Told
myself not to love you too much, not to become too dependent, not
to let myself need you."

"Is that a memory or a guess?" he asked.

She lowered her head, pressed her fingers to
her forehead. "I'm not sure. Maybe a little of both." She drew a
deep breath. "He...he was in Africa with us. He was killed. In the
same explosion that nearly killed me."

"Yeah. Do you remember that?"

"I know it happened. But the event...it's
still hazy. I can see parts. I remember pain, I remember trying to
walk through this smoke and dust, calling for you, calling for
Dad..." She frowned, because no more would come. Then she narrowed
her eyes. "Dad worked for the DEA, too, didn't he? That's why we
were all in Africa together. We were gathering evidence. Peter had
drug connections there."

Michael nodded. "Your father trained me. For
a long time, he and I were almost as close as you and he were.
Or...I thought so." He pointed past her. "We're almost to
shore."

She picked up the oars and used them to push
the boat to the shoreline, then she climbed out and dragged the
craft's nose onto the beach. She reached for him, and he didn't
wince when he moved. The cut on his hand had stopped bleeding, and
he'd managed to wash the blood away as they'd crossed the lake,
with strips of the T-shirt and lake water.

He stepped onto the shore.

She couldn't help but slide her arms around
his waist, and his came around her as if the action were reflexive.
Resting her head on his chest, she said, "God, this has been a
nightmare for you. All of it."

His good hand in her hair, he whispered, "The
nightmare would have been if I'd lost you. Have I, Kira?"

She lifted her head slowly and met his eyes,
let them probe hers. "Even if I never remember another thing, I
know that what we had was real, and it was good. And that I want it
back."

His eyes roamed her face for another moment,
and then he lowered his head and kissed her. His mouth covered
hers, and then his tongue nudged her lips apart, and she opened to
him, eager to explore the feelings he stirred in her. She held him
harder, tangling her tongue with his, as her heart pounded and her
breaths stuttered. And when she arched against him, she felt him,
hard, and pushing back.

She opened her eyes, drawing her mouth away
from his, and whispered, "I want to make love to you, Michael. Just
as soon as your hand is patched up, I want us to—"

"Hand, hell." He scooped her into his arms,
took her mouth even as he carried her further across the shore, and
into a meadow of tall grasses and wildflowers. Dropping to his
knees, he laid her down in the grass, stretched out beside her,
kissing her jaw, her neck. His wounded hand lay on the ground above
her head, but the good one ran over her cheeks, and then her
breasts, and then her belly. She wanted to touch him, too, and
quickly unbuttoned his shirt and pushed it down from his shoulders.
She ran her palms over his chest, and the fire inside her burned
hotter.