THE GUARDIAN (Taskforce Series) (44 page)

You think?
“Your story is essential to my book, Sulayman. Tell me the rest, and I’ll see that you get your money. You were telling me about the school girl you picked up. How old do you figure she was? What did she look like?”
Lena
bit her tongue. Asking too many questions would arouse his suspicions
.

His eyes narrowed with suspicion. “Why’re you so interested?”

She was my sister!

It took all of
Lena
’s willpower not to back away as he circled the desk. This was her last chance to put
Davis
away forever. For the sake of all of his victims, not just Alexa, she had to do this. “Because I admire you for what you’ve gotten away with,” she lied. Luckily, her voice, husky with fear, sounded sultry. “You’re a bad boy, Sulayman.” As he stepped close enough to breathe on her, she laid a hand on his chest to ward him off.

“That’s right, I’m bad,” he growled in agreement. “That’s why I brought you here, bitch. ‘Cause I know you like it rough.” Eyes glinting with excitement, he seized her upper arms
.

“Tell me first,” she begged, sensing that the police would intervene at any minute. “How old was that girl? Just how bad are you?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know—fifteen, sixteen.”

He yanked her to him, and every muscle in
Lena
’s body recoiled at the feel of his arousal. “You said she proved not to be worth it. What happened?” she persisted.

“You want to know what happened?” The rough edge of his voice conveyed his impatience with her questioning. “I slapped her hard, like this, and broke her fucking neck.”

The stinging blow that whipped
Lena
’s head to one side brought tears to her eyes. The briefcase she still clutched fell with a thump to her feet. A thump in the hallway echoed it, making
Davis
freeze. “What was that?” 

Without warning, the door exploded inward. The hinges popped loose, and it crashed to the floor, throwing dust into the air.

Broad shoulders filled the doorway. “Police! Step away from the woman and get down on the floor!”

Lena moved quickly toward the cops, but with a yank on her hair,
Davis
caught her back. Quick as a snake, he squeezed her throat, just like at Artie’s.

“Best back away or I’ll shoot her dead!” Out of nowhere, he produced a gun. The bite of a barrel assured her he wasn’t bluffing.

Shocked,
Lena
sought to free herself. With starbursts swimming before her eyes, she heard the cops reiterate their demands, heard
Davis
threaten to kill her if they didn’t back off.

This is not the way it’s supposed to end
. She pictured
Jackson
’s reaction at the news that the sting had gone awry. She envisioned her parents’ anguish.
I can’t let this happen.
Yet, there was nothing she could do.

Davis
backed up, groping for the wall behind him. When he jerked her out of the building into brilliant sunshine, she realized he had pulled her outside onto an old fire escape. Slamming shut the metal partition, he flung
Lena
aside
.

She barely caught herself from spilling over the rickety, metal railing. Out the corner of her eye, she saw
Davis
swing his legs over, preparing to jump. The stairs were long gone.

Two gunshots rang out. In the next instant,
Davis
landed at her feet, causing the whole apparatus to shudder. The stunned look on his face and the crimson circle spreading on his shoulder assured her that he’d been shot. Seeking the shooter,
Lena
recognized both the cop dressed like a bum and Jackson—not resting in her car like she’d left him, but propped against a telephone phone pole, clutching his pistol. It was hard to say whose bullet had stopped
Davis
, but
Lena
’s money was on her man
.

As she met his harried gaze, tears of relief and gratitude flooded her eyes
.

Jackson
shook his head in exasperation. “Can we get on with our lives now?” he shouted up at her
.
 

Her heart replete with love,
Lena
gave a watery laugh. As the door separating her from the officers burst open, she shook off the concerns of the uniformed cops and slipped past them. Hurrying through the old building and out the nearest exit, she flew across the patchy grass to arrive at
Jackson
’s side just as he was keeling over. The wail of sirens grew louder.

“Here, lie down.” She lowered him gently onto the dirt and weeds and collapsed beside him, trembling uncontrollably.

“You okay?” he asked with a worried once-over
.

“You’re the one who should be in the hospital right now,” she retorted
.
He had walked out that morning, against medical advice, without so much as a crutch to help him get around
.

“It’s not my hip,” he assured her. He put his hand over his chest. “It’s the shock of almost losing you. I can’t go through this again,
Lena
,” he confessed.

She rolled toward him, laying a hand on the side of his face. “I promise, everything will be roses from here on out.”

Chuckling in disbelief, he caught her face in his hand and drew her lips to his for a heartfelt kiss. “God, I love you,” he confessed.

“I love you, too, Jackson.”

An ambulance screeched to a halt at their feet. Paramedics rushed up to them, but
Jackson
waved them away. “About that vacation,” he began
.
 

Epilogue

With her eyes,
Lena
followed the dark, graceful figure leading Naomi under the palm trees. Fontana Maddox made a habit of walking down to the beach every evening to watch the glorious sunset. Lena marveled at how much
Jackson
resembled his mother, if only in physical form.

“Why didn’t you go with them?”
Jackson
asked, stepping out onto the patio to join her, cane in hand. He’d healed well over the past month. Physical therapy would begin after their vacation, and soon he wouldn’t need the cane at all
.

A warm breeze, smelling of pineapple and coconut oil tussled
Lena
’s curls as she turned to smile at him. The frangipani flowers surrounding the patio fluttered in the fading light. Wrapping her arms around him, she savored how solid and real he felt in her embrace. “Because this is our last evening here, and I wanted to spend it with you,” she explained
.

Every day of their week-long vacation,
Jackson
had made it down to the water to enjoy the beach with them, but slogging through the soft sand twice in a day was still too much for his healing ligaments.

“I’m sorry.” He sent her a remorseful look. “I should have whisked you away on a vacation where it was just the two of us.”

She rolled her eyes at him. “That’s not what I meant. I’ve loved every minute of getting to meet your mother and seeing where you grew up. And I’ve loved having Naomi with us. But a little romance at sunset, just the two of us, is just what the doctor ordered.” She fastened her gaze deliberately on his mouth.

“I see,” he murmured, rewarding her with the kind of kiss that never failed to promise paradise
.

Desire heated the already sultry evening air as their tongues tangled and the kiss deepened. For
Lena
, the week had passed in a blur of sensual indulgence and emotional fulfillment. She had never been so happy in her life. The only experiences that eclipsed her happiness by day were the nights spent in
Jackson
’s arms.
Fontana
had conveniently placed them in the same guestroom, and
Jackson
had no difficulty whatsoever maneuvering in bed.

“Your mother is nothing like your father, is she?”
Lena
had met Martin Maddox the previous week. Proper and reserved, he’d made her feel like a bug under a microscope. “How on earth did those two meet, anyway?”

Jackson
gestured to the hanging bench suspended from an arbor. “You’ll have to sit for that story.”

“Okay.” She led the way to the bench, holding it steady as he eased down beside her.

“I think it was a case of opposites attracting,” he began, using his good leg to swing them back and forth. “My father had just finished law school and was down here with his buddies, celebrating the passing of their bar exams. My mother, who’d worked at the hotel where he was staying, caught his eye. I guess because he was on vacation, he wasn’t as straight-laced as he usually is. In her words, they enjoyed a whirlwind romance, if you can imagine that. When he left a week later, he gave her his address. A month after that, my mother realized she was pregnant.”

“Oh, dear.”
Lena
hung on every word.

“She wrote to my father, hoping for child support,”
Jackson
continued, “but instead of sending her money, he flew down and insisted she marry him.”

“Well, that was honorable.”

“My father is nothing if not honorable,” he replied
.

“What happened then?”

“My mother returned to the States with him and they tried their best to share a life together, but...” He shrugged. “Like you said, they’re nothing alike.”

Lena
looked away and sighed. “That’s so sad.” 

But
Jackson
wasn’t finished. “By the time I was two, she realized that much for herself and brought me back to the island to raise me here. My father, being the man he is, made certain she had all the creature comforts she needed.” He waved a hand to encompass the sprawling, white-washed home behind them with its red-tiled roof.

Lena
’s opinion of Martin Maddox rose a notch higher.

“When I was twelve, my mother decided I should get to know my father better, so she sent me off to live with him.”

The roughness in
Jackson
’s voice prompted
Lena
to wrap her arms around him. “That must have been hard for you,” she sympathized, “leaving your mother behind and all your friends.”

“It was hard at first,” he acknowledged, “but I’m more like my father than you realize.” 

“If you say so,” she said dubiously.

“We eventually adjusted. He sent me to a good private school, encouraged me to apply to VMI. I eventually became a Marine Corps Officer, fell in love, got married, and the rest is history.”

“And they never divorced?”
Lena
asked, still thinking of his parents.

“Never.”

She let herself dwell on the end of his story. “Were you and Colleen as happy the way we are?” Given what Naomi had admitted, she had her doubts, but this was the first time she’d dared to ask.