Finding Dani (Once a Marine, Always a Marine Book 3) (17 page)

Anger and adrenaline must have been what were keeping Claire on her feet.

And Damon wasn’t helping. Claire pulled a syringe from her back pocket. It was loaded with a clear fluid. It was the one missing from the gold case. “How did Hailey get the case?”

“I’d hidden it with her stuff. You know she never checks her things once she’s settled in.” Claire shrugged. “The little twit found it ahead of schedule. I was supposed to have the staff sergeant with me when I conveniently found it and blamed the whole thing on her.”

“I feel like I don’t even know you,” Dani said.

“But I know you. Everything about you.”

Damon finally looked at Dani. He had his stone face on, the one that didn’t give away whatever he was planning. But he said, “She’s got a little house with a shrine built to you, sugar. Pictures of you sleeping, pictures of you together in different countries, and pictures of you with other people. Claire’s been stalking you when she’s not with you.”

“Stop it,” Claire yelled and threw the syringe at him.
Dani watched has he caught it, by reflex. And then she saw Claire swing the gun toward her again. The smile on her face was cruel as she watched them both.

“You have a choice,” she said to Damon. “You inject yourself with that syringe, or I shoot the woman we both love. Then, you can kill me. But you won’t have her and I will.”

“You’re sick, Claire. Let me help you,” Dani pleaded. “Please, don’t do this.”

“He’s not good enough for you,” she said. Her voice was back to that dead tone that signaled she was ready to take action. And then she fired at Dani. The bullet hit the nose of the helicopter next to her. Two inches to the right and that bullet would have been in Dani’s stomach.

“Do it now,” she demanded.

“Please don’t, Damon. Don’t do this,” Dani said. She was too scared and bewildered to cry. Either way, Claire was going to kill him. Whether it was with a bullet or the virus, Damon was a dead man. And there was nothing she could do to stop it. She was going to lose the man she loved. Again.
 

Damon smiled and uncapped the needle. “I trust Gunner,” he said, right before plunging the needle into his thigh.

“No,” Dani screamed and lunged forward toward him.

But he was already moving. Claire’s arm had dropped and started to swing toward him when he pulled the needle out and threw it hard at her face. The instinct to duck was too strong and she did, recovering too late. Damon was on her, twisting her hand into an unnatural position and taking the gun away from her. She sank to her knees, screaming in pain, and then she keeled over and vomited everywhere.

“She’s infected,” Damon said.

Dani was next to him in an instant. “I know.” And it broke her heart. The whole damn thing did. Claire was sobbing, holding her stomach and moaning. Blood was beginning to trickle out of her ears at an alarming rate.

“We need to get her to the quarantine zone.”

But Damon shook his head. “She’s not going to make it, sugar. Look at all the blood.” He pulled Dani close and hugged her tight. “Tell her you love her,” he whispered into her hair.

Dani looked up at him in disbelief. “She just tried to kill you.” It was something she would have expected from his brother, that overwhelming compassion in the face of what some would call evil. And it was like Gabriel was with them, watching over them both.

Guiding them.

She went down to her knees and pulled Claire into her arms and away from the mess she’d made on the ground. If Damon trusted Gunner enough to inject himself with a full dose of the virus, then she’d trust his serum as well and give Claire what she needed. She couldn’t stop herself. And she couldn’t process everything that the woman in her arms had done. To Dani, she was still just her best friend. She’d mourn that later and let the anger come then.

“I love you too, Claire. You’ve been the best thing that’s happened in my sad life. You always made me smile, even when I didn’t want to.” She hugged the crying woman closer. “Thank you for loving me.”

“I’m sorry, Dani. So sorry for what I’ve done.”

“Don’t worry about that now. We have to get you well, so you can fix it, okay?”

Claire nodded and then relaxed into Dani’s arms. Her crying had stopped and she was burning up. She was hotter than a human body should ever be, and when she slumped over, Dani knew it was over.

She looked up at Damon with tears streaking down her face. “Tell me this isn’t my fault.”

He pulled Claire out of her arms and laid her on the ground, checking for a pulse. He pulled back and shook his head, finding none. “What she did wasn’t your fault. She never stopped to think about what her actions would do, beyond keeping you with her.”

He pulled her up into his arms and away from the body. Dani shuddered and forced the sob back down, stinging her throat in the process. The hot tears she couldn’t stop. For the lost lives of innocent villagers, to the soldiers that were infected at the camp, to the woman who’d loved her and had gone mad because of it.

“I think she used the first syringe on that coma patient and then used the second on herself,” he said. “I think the guilt of what she’d done finally caught up with her.”

“It doesn’t excuse her,” Dani sniffed.

“Well, I, for one, am glad the bitch is dead,” Gunner snarled, coming into view. He was holding his case, and when he reached them, he grabbed them both and pulled them into a hug. “She almost shot both of you.”

“Calm down, man. I had it handled,” Damon said.

“You gave yourself a full dose of the virus, dumbass. How am I supposed to react to that?”

“You heard it all?” Dani asked.

“Every little bit. And we got it recorded as a confession of sorts. But since justice has already been served, I guess it doesn’t really matter now. But I’m still pissed off.”

Gunner was down on one knee, jerking open his case and coming out with another needle. “Since you were so goddamn cavalier about sticking yourself, you won’t mind this.” And he came up and stabbed Damon in the same thigh that he’d given himself the shot in.

“Ow, you bastard. I didn’t actually give myself the shot, just got the needle in as a distraction before pulling it out and throwing it at her. She’d taken a shot at Dani, damn it.”

“I don’t care, this is another precaution.” And then he came up with another syringe. “And one for you, my dear, since you decided to pardon the psychopath with close physical contact.”

Dani didn’t argue, just presented her arm for the shot. He was a lot gentler with her, even though she could tell he was still pissed. She grabbed his arm and pulled him into a hug. “Thank you, Gunner.”

“Thank me by naming your first kid after me, even if it’s a girl,” he muttered, before he stalked off and into the shadows again with his briefcase.

Dani looked up and Damon and slid her arms around his waist. “I knew you’d find me.”

“Gabriel told me where you were.”

She pulled back and stared up at him confused. He pointed toward the cockpit. There was a soft blue glow that she hadn’t noticed before. “What is that?”

“Motion activated. I sleep in my chopper a lot when I’m on a mission. That glow has saved my ass on several occasions. It’s set to go off when anyone gets within a hundred yards of my bird.”

“He really is with us, isn’t he?”

Damon nodded and kissed her. “He always will be. He loved you until the day he died, and I will love you until there’s not a single breath left in my body.”

“I love you, Damon.”

“Damn straight, you do. Now, let’s get out of here and see if Gunner has singlehandedly saved the camp yet.”

“What did he inject us with this time?”

Damon smiled. “The cure.”

“That’s hard to believe, but it would be a miracle.”

“I’d only ever bet against Gunner in poker.”

Chapter 16

“I quit,” Mike Hansen said. “You guys are driving me to drink.”

It had been three months since Liberia and all the death that had taken place there and Damon Dupree had never been happier. He was getting married today to the most beautiful woman in the world, and he had his friends by his side. Even the grumpy one.

“You can’t quit, Uncle Mike. Daddy says it makes you a sore loser if you quit ‘cause you’re losing.”

“How did you get so good at poker?” Mike grumbled and tossed his cards down.

Xavier Steele pointed his little finger right at Damon, and he couldn’t help but grin at the disgruntled look on Mike’s face. The kid was fleecing the big man of all his money. Damon couldn’t have been prouder of him if he’d been his own son.

Zach was grinning, but not really paying attention because his wife, Elizabeth, had just bent over to adjust the flowers on Jesse’s twin girls. Damon rolled his eyes, but understood completely. He didn’t think he was that bad, however.

“You are, you know,” Jesse said, grinning at him. He nodded toward their friend, still ogling his wife. “When Dani walks by, you can’t even string together two words.”

“I don’t believe you,” Damon mumbled and looked back at his hand. He didn’t need to, he was sitting on a full house, Aces over Eights. The dead man’s hand, but he was alive and well, thanks to Gunner.

“Has anyone heard from Gunner today? Did he make his flight?”

“He’ll be here,” Zach said. “He’s tied up in some debrief that’s still going on over his Ebola serum. That whole thing in Liberia has blown up in everyone’s faces, especially once that Dr. Graham went on
Larry King Live
about his damn book.”

Jesse took the cards out of Xavier’s hands and pointed toward Elizabeth. “Your mother wants you.” The boy hopped down from his chair, racing off toward his mom. He turned back toward Damon. “How is Hailey doing?”

They all knew the story, and Dani was keeping tabs on her friend. “She’s got some organ damage that is going to be slow healing, but she’s alive and thankful.”

And, even though Dani refused to speak to Travis, and he
had
been fired from his position at the CDC, Dani had quietly helped him get his son into this country and away from his grandfather.

“Gunner took it pretty hard over losing some of those soldiers,” Damon said. “He went into his lab and didn’t come out until he had a workable serum to inoculate everyone that had been exposed.”

Zach shook his head. “He needs a caretaker. Otherwise, that old butler of his is going to find his rotting corpse in that basement of his.”

Damon grinned. “He does tend to forget to eat when he’s on a project.” His cell phone made a chirpy noise and he looked down. He read the text message. “Speak of the devil. He said not to hold the wedding for him, but he’d be at the reception if he had to fly himself. He’s ramming his serum down the throats of anyone that will listen to him.”

“Good for him,” Jesse said.

“No way is the FDA going to approve it until they get their grimy hands on it and decide how to make money on it,” Mike added. He was looking at his single dollar left in front of him. “Your son,” he said to Zach, “is a poker shark.”

“He makes me proud,” Zach laughed.

“Well, I’d better go tell Red that we can finally get this done.”

Jesse was the one rolling his eyes this time. “For the love of God, Damon, don’t phrase it like that or she’ll never marry you.”

“She’s crazy about me. And my daddy has a shotgun and a pet alligator; both will be used to get her back into the family if needed.”

Then he left his friends to find his soon-to-be bride. He took the stairs two at a time and went into their room without knocking. And what he saw took his breath away. She was in nothing but a tiny lacy something that didn’t hide anything from his hungry gaze, white stockings with garters, and white heels.

“You are not supposed to see the bride before the wedding,” she scolded playfully. “It’s bad luck.”

“I make my own luck, and I think I’m damned lucky to catch you in that little number.” He slammed the door and locked it before stalking over to his redheaded beauty. She had her hands on her hips and a sassy look on her face.

She held a hand up and pressed it against his chest. “You are going to ruin my make-up.”

He leaned in; just close enough to kiss, but not. “You can fix it again.”

“My daddy and yours are downstairs right now,” she squeaked, dodging his kiss.

“Then it can be a shotgun wedding if they find out.”

The love of his life pressed her delectable body against his and wound her hands around his neck. “Maybe if we’re real quiet,” she said suggestively.

She was wearing some kind of sultry perfume that had him putting his nose into the crook of her neck to inhale her. Dani smelled like sunshine and sex, and it was making his pants tight and uncomfortable. He nibbled and she sighed, sliding her nails against his scalp to urge him on.

And then the door opened. Lily Calhoun and Elizabeth Steele stood there with their arms crossed over their chests, both trying, and failing, to look disapproving. The big grins were a giveaway.

“Out,” Lily said, glaring at Damon. “You are needed downstairs by the fathers, who saw you sneaking up here, by the way.” She held up the spare key. “Daddy Dupree gave me this and said to give you some hell.”