Forbidden (Southern Comfort) (40 page)

Beall’s eyes narrowed as they assessed Clay’s, and he gave a brief nod before moving back.  “The answer is still
no,
Agent Copeland.”  He said it loud enough for others to hear.  “Now don’t come to me with this nonsense again.”

Beall struck off toward the back of the van, and Clay hung his head, defeated.

Then affixing an angry mask to his face, tried not to smile as he stormed off.        

JR
emerged from the tunnel’s back entrance at the edge of the field.  Sapling pines and saw palmettos grew thick, affording cover as he crept out.  Moving closer, on hands and knees, toward the tree line that meant salvation, he pulled out his binoculars and studied the scene.

Cops and federal agents were scurrying about like rats in a lab, and as he shifted the field glasses higher he picked out one, two…three snipers positioned in trees near the house, waiting for him to actually be dumb enough to pass in front of one of the windows. Or perhaps step out onto the porch to offer them all some iced tea.

Scanning toward the driveway, he saw several news crews gathered like vultures, waiting for some flesh to pluck. 

Ha! Weren’t they going to be happy when that damn house blew all to hell?

JR lifted his head briefly, pulling his bottom lip between his teeth as he considered a slight problem.  How could he be sure that one of the pigs actually fired off a shot toward the house?

Damn. 
Why hadn’t he considered that before?  He would have, if he hadn’t been penned in, the surprise of it all making him sloppy.  How the hell had they found him so quickly, anyway?  Was it that damn pretty boy he’d shot?  He probably should have gone outside and given him an insurance tap to the head, but the guy had looked like a goner.

And he’d been in a hurry to get out, so…

He lifted the binoculars again, trying to gage what the Feebs were going to do. Lo and behold, if it wasn’t Agent Copeland, little Tate’s screw buddy, getting all fired up and causing a scene.  Maybe he should call that damn number the negotiator kept repeating, and tell them that he was going to kill the kid.  Once Copeland got word of that, he’d go racing into the place, gun blasting.

Then,
boom.

Just as he was trying to work out the angles for making that a viable plan, he caught sight of a commotion near the driveway.  Somebody was causing a ruckus, yelling at some cops, and a couple of reporters were scrambling.

Then the crowd parted and he saw…

Tate.

JR smiled with something approaching giddiness.  She’d made it to see the show after all.

He swung the binoculars around, and saw Copeland getting ready to… walk up to the door?

Damn, the asshole had balls.

And just as he was getting ready to slip his phone from his pocket, he heard a noise in one of the trees several yards away.

“What the hell is that idiot doing?”

Startled, JR quietly lifted his binoculars, and saw that the question had been uttered by sniper number
four,
who was perched in a tree not thirty feet in front of him.

Damn,
that had been close.  If the sniper hadn’t been keeping his full attention on the house through the scope of his rifle, he probably would have spotted JR.

Sweating from the heat, and from his own frayed nerves, JR started to slink away.

But then another thought occurred, and had him reaching for his weapon.

CLAY
focused on the farmhouse door, absolutely ignoring the fact that he could be shot down at any second.  He’d removed his sidearm and kept his hands raised high to show Walker he wasn’t carrying. 

Behind him, Beall was indeed going through the motions of outrage, and he heard both Kim and Kathleen’s anxious voices.

He blocked it all out.

All he saw right now was the door to that house, and a vision of the child who was behind it.  Holding his hand, laying his head on his shoulder in that sleepy, trusting way kids had… asking if he was going to be his daddy.

Yes,
he wanted to tell Max right now, wished in fact that he’d said so yesterday morning.  If Max and Tate would have him, he was utterly prepared to step into that role.

“Clay!”

He heard the voice, frantic and filled with pain.

“Clay!”

He turned, halfway to the front porch, and met Tate’s eyes across the dirt and scrabble of the front yard.  She stood next to Kathleen, who’d wrapped an arm around Tate’s shoulders, helping to keep her on her feet.

“
I love you.”

Willing away the tears that stung the back of his eyes, Clay briefly put his hand over his heart before turning back toward the house.  If he tried to speak now, he’d probably lose it.

Then Kim called to him again, urgently, Beall’s voice ringing along with hers.

Clay ignored them both.

He’d just taken another step toward that front door when it blew off its hinges and splintered toward him.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

NO.

Every cell in Clay’s body screamed the protest, reacting to the shock.   The house had freakin’… blown up.

“No.”   This time he managed to mutter it aloud, despite the fact that something sat like an anvil atop his chest.  Blocked the sun from his face.  Prevented air from reaching his lungs. 

He lifted one arm in a feeble bid for freedom, but pain propelled through it like a rocket.  “
Shit.”

“Clay!”

The voice rang familiar, frantic and female.  What sounded like boards clattered, followed by the peal of sirens and the whoosh of water.  Around him, fire cackled and roared.  He wondered how close he was to the flames.

“I think he’s over here!” 

Kim.  That was definitely Kim.

“I need a hand with this!”

More clattering, then light speared his eyes.  Until a cloud of black smoke roiled to obscure the sun, its acrid scent falling like dirty rain.

“Oh, thank God.” Kim’s worried frown hovered.  She touched his cheek, brought her fingers away bloody.  He wondered if she knew that her face was smudged.  “Just hang on a minute,
Clay, and we’ll get this off of you.”

With the admission of daylight, Clay could see that he’d been pinned by a chunk of door.  The door that had been connected to the house. The house that had just blown up. 

With Max in it.

“On three…”

Clay cried out as the heavy piece of wood was lifted, oxygen filling his lungs in a painful rush.  Two men he didn’t recognize carried the door off to the side, and tears flooded his eyes as he attempted to lever himself onto his good arm.  “
Max
.”

“Shh,” Kim cajoled, closing in, easing him down.  Concerned blue eyes darted over him, visibly widening at the sight of his arm.  “Don’t try to move yet.  Max is fine.”

Yeah, right.  Like he was going to believe that.  Kim was just trying to pacify him to keep him from moving – as if he cared if he’d broken a few bones.  “Don’t lie to me, dammit.” And heaving his weight, pushed her off.  “Where’s Tate?” Jesus God, he had to see her.  “
Tate
!”

“Is he okay?” he heard her voice, wrecked from grief, but he couldn’t see her.  Then Kim moved back, calling for an EMT, and there she was, dropping to her knees.  “Oh Clay.  Your arm.”    She visibly paled, touched his cheek.  “I thought you were dead.” And her sob was pitiful.  “You just… flew into the air…”

Unable to speak, she leaned over, tears dripping onto his cheeks to mingle with his own.  “I’m sorry,” he whispered, lips a hair’s breadth from her ear.  “I’m so, so sorry.  God, Tate.  I… I loved him, too.”

Leaning back, Tate blinked at him, and unbelievably, started to smile.  It dawned slow at first, hesitant, but burst forth into a blinding grin.  “Max is fine,” she echoed Kim’s earlier declaration.  “Well, maybe not fine, but he will be.  In all the panic and chaos, I forgot that you couldn’t have…” She shook her head, and pointed toward a nearby ambulance.  “He’s drugged, still, and we’re getting ready to head to the hospital.  But his vital signs are all good.  He’ll be sick, some, they said, but he’s alive, Clay.  He’s…” she lifted her shoulders and then relaxed them in a
heartfelt sigh. “Alive.”

The rush of emotion was like nothing he’d ever known.  Relief.  Awe.  Love…

Confusion.

“How –” he started, but then Kim appeared, medical technician in tow, two others following with a stretcher.  The EMT knelt next to him, asking Tate if she could please move back.  

“Casey Rodriguez,” she explained, reluctantly leaving his side.  “She was in the house.  She went through the bathroom window and climbed out onto the porch roof, carrying Max.  One of the snipers saw her, and radioed that they were out.  That’s what your friend Kim was trying to tell you.  Casey jumped, holding onto Max, and, I think, twisted her ankle, but she managed to get clear of the house.”  She pushed her fingers to lips that trembled.  “They’re going to be okay.”

“Sir,” the EMT interrupted as Clay tried to sort through what Tate was saying. Casey Rodriguez had saved Max?   What about Walker?  “We’re going to need to get you into an ambulance,” the man continued his professional buzzing in Clay’s ear.  “Your arm’s busted up pretty good.”

Yeah, Clay was beginning to get that picture. 

“Can he ride in the ambulance with Max?” Tate wanted to know, watching the proceedings with anxious eyes. 

“That’s not standard procedure.” The man braced Clay’s neck, stabilized his arm so that they could lift him onto the stretcher.  Clay felt little right now, but knew the shock would wear off and it was going to hurt like a bitch. 

“Please,” he said, grabbing the man’s arm with his good hand.  “He’s… mine.”

The EMT blew out a breath, glanced at the nods from his colleagues.  “Okay.  But anybody asks, we went by the book.”   

      
THE
IV Clay was hooked to contained some pretty awesome drugs. 

He was feeling no pain, that was for sure, as Tate ran her fingers through his hair while they waited for the EMTs to wrap things up
. He groggily looked over at Max, noticed Tate’s other hand clutching her son’s.  Other than a few scrapes, bruises and a good bit of dirt, the boy didn’t look too worse for wear.  There was the drug to worry about, of course, but if his respiration was good… 

It could have been so much worse.

Frowning, he glanced toward the open ambulance doors.

“Do you see Kim anywhere out there?” He wanted to know if they’d found any sign of Walker.

“Um…”  Tate shifted beside him, straining her neck so that she could see around the doors.  “She’s over by that van.  Do you want me to go get her?”

“If you wouldn’t mind.  Once they get me into surgery, it will be a while before I can talk to her.”

After dropping a kiss onto both his and Max’s cheeks, Tate reluctantly climbed out from beside them.  “Be right back.” 

Clay closed his eyes, feeling his body float, as if the laws of gravity could hold him no longer.  And though the sensation wasn’t entirely unpleasant, he wanted to stay alert until he spoke with Kim.

The click of the doors closing startled Clay’s eyes open, and then one of the EMTs climbed into the driver’s seat.  He engaged the ignition, threw the gearshift into drive, and started to pull away.

“Hey,” Clay called, thankful that the man hadn’t turned on the siren, because otherwise he probably couldn’t have heard him.  “Could you hold off there, just a minute?  We need to wait for our other passenger.”

“Sorry pal,” the EMT called back, “I’ve waited too long already.”  He laughed softly, and Clay craned his neck in the brace, trying to get a look at the man.  He couldn’t see more from his position than a glimpse of dark uniform and hat.

“Seriously.” He tried to keep his words from slurring, because those awesome drugs worked pretty damn fast.  “You need to wait for the child’s mother.  She’s had a pretty rough day, and she really needs to be with her son.”

The EMT ignored him as the crunch of dirt and gravel gave way to the smooth hum of the pavement.  “Buddy,” Clay said again, more forcefully.  “Stop the ambulance.  Now.”

“Yeah, I don’t think so, Agent Copeland.”    

Fear rushed, icy cold, and just like that, he knew.

Jonathan Walker was driving the ambulance. 

The relentless son of a bitch.  The explosion must have been a distraction… 

Clay fumbled around as unobtrusively as possible, slipping the IV needle from the back of his hand with a decided lack of finesse.  He had to stop the steady flow of narcotic into his veins or he’d be out cold in a matter of minutes.  Fighting to keep his breathing even, his fogged brain from slipping into panic, Clay scanned the interior of the ambulance for a readily available weapon.  It probably should have galled him that he wasn’t even considering reasoning with the man, but he wanted Walker dead as quickly as possible, and to hell with any repercussions.