Secure Target (Elite Operators) (24 page)

Lacey felt dizzy as panic welled up in her throat. “Bronnik,” she pleaded, her voice pitched high with hysteria. He caught her eye and shook his head almost imperceptibly.

Her heart beat harder. What did that mean? Don’t say anything? Or there was nothing he could do, and it was all over? She began to weep desperately, no longer able to keep up her façade of cool-headed strength.

Hardy leaped down from the chair with a grin. “Ready?” he asked, and then kicked the chair out from under her feet.

The pain was instant and ravaging. Her lungs expanded and contracted frantically as the cord cut into her windpipe, she was choking, spluttering, unable to breathe, her mind reeling, her vision blurring…

The chair was back under her feet and she struggled to keep upright, rasping an agonizing, glorious breath of air into her lungs. Bronnik was standing beside her, sawing through the silk cord with a flick knife as he shouted, “Now, go, go, go!”

There was an incredible thundering boom as a hole blasted through the ceiling, sending bits of plaster and insulation floating down around them. As Bronnik cut the last strands of the cord and she collapsed against him, gasping, a stream of Special Task Force operators poured into the room, hollering commands at Hardy to get down, get down, and put his hands behind his head.

She glanced across the room to see that Hardy had missed the knife by at least a foot. He lay on the carpet on his stomach, surrounded by five men in full tactical gear, their assault rifles trained on his back. One of them was cuffing his wrists and ankles, and when he stood up to check his handiwork, Lacey recognized Warren’s face beneath the camouflage helmet.

Bronnik hoisted her down to the floor and helped her sit up, propping her back against the wall.

“Are you okay? Are you all right?” he asked over and over again, pulling the looped cord over her head and tossing it to the side. His face was creased with concern, and when he put his palm against her cheek she couldn’t stifle a grateful sob.

“I knew you’d come,” she whispered.

His eyes were full of something unsaid, something big, but he just nodded, and then set to work cutting through the cord around her ankles.

“You had a knife all along?”

“In my boot,” he replied, finishing her ankles and starting on her wrists. “Hardy doesn’t make the rules. I do.”

He cut the last strand and dropped the knife, and gathered her roughly in his arms. His embrace was so tight it was almost painful, but she couldn’t care less. She pressed her face into his collarbone and wrapped her arms around the broad expanse of his rib cage. He was so big and solid, so warm and secure after the hours of terror and uncertainty, she wanted to hold on to him and never let go. She felt his lips brush the hair at the top of her head and squeezed her eyes shut, overcome with joy and relief. He was every bit the anchor she’d envisioned.

After several long, precious minutes, Bronnik pulled back to look at her, his thumb smoothing her cheekbone. “Lacey,” he said hoarsely, but stopped as Thando arrived beside them.

His partner dropped to a crouch beside them and put his hand on her shoulder. “We’ve got him, Miss Cross,” he said warmly. “And he won’t be getting away from us ever again. This is South Africa—we don’t let prisoners give us the slip. You’ll be safe now.”

She put her hand over his to show her gratitude. “Thank you, Thando,” she told him sincerely, and smiled. “But with you and Bronnik on the case, I was always safe.”

To her surprise, Thando’s expression was mildly shy, and genuinely flattered.

“Lacey needs some air,” Bronnik interjected. Thando nodded knowingly, and shot her one last grin before he moved away.

“I’m fine here,” she countered, not too eager to walk on her aching ankles, but wordlessly Bronnik tucked his arms beneath her and swung her up, with one arm behind her knees and the other supporting her back. She wrapped her arms around his neck and relaxed against him as he effortlessly transported her through the room, still chaotic with operators milling around and radios blaring amidst the plaster dust, out to the parking lot in front.

As he lowered her to a sitting position on the hood of a four-by-four, the only car parked outside the building, she noticed the makeshift walkway that had been erected between the roof of the dental office and the auto parts store next door. When she craned her neck she saw the array of police vehicles parked on the far side of that store, some bearing the Special Task Force insignia.

Bronnik took her hands in his, and her focus was entirely on him. He looked so impossibly handsome to her in that moment, with the moonlight throwing a silvery glow across his thick blond hair and reflecting in the deep blue pools of his eyes.

“Lacey,” he began again, his voice firmer now. “I love you. I love you more than I ever imagined I could love anyone. At the thought of losing you tonight—” He faltered, took a breath, and squeezed her hands. “It almost destroyed me. I love you, and I can’t live without you.”

Her heart was in her throat, and she didn’t dare to breathe. She just stared at him, incredulous and utterly without words.

Bronnik studied her face and began speaking quickly. “We’ll find something for you here in Cape Town, a job, or you could go to the university, or start your business, or I can buy a bigger house…” He trailed off, his expression clouded with worry. “Just, stay. Say you’ll stay with me.”

Inside, Lacey felt a very old, very heavy weight inside her rip free from its roots and float up and out into the night air. Bronnik had seen her for who she was right from the beginning, and she knew she’d never be anonymous again. Effervescent, blissful laughter rippled through her. She felt alive, and open and so very lucky.

“Bronnik,” she said warmly, putting her hands on either side of his anxious face, “I love you so much that I can barely comprehend it. I’m not going anywhere.”

And there, as Bronnik puts his lips to hers in a vacant parking lot outside a crime scene, in a city built on the edge of the world, with the stars bright and brilliant overhead, Lacey knew the future stretched out ahead of them, offering happiness as limitless as the vast African sky.

Epilogue

Lacey stared anxiously at the big timing clock mounted over the triathlon finish line. It had just ticked past two hours and fifteen minutes.

Any second now.

When she looked down to check her own watch, she caught Heloise giving her a sidelong glance. She raised her brows in question.

“Do you think he’ll be much longer?” Heloise asked quietly. “Maybe I should take the boys back to the house and start getting ready for the barbecue.”

She smiled, shaking her head. “He’ll be here soon.”

“Yeah, Mom,” Heloise’s younger son chirped. “He’ll be here any minute.”

She shot Heloise an apologetic wince, but the older woman waved her hand dismissively. She returned her attention to the finish line, which was positioned at the end of a section of enclosed path that emerged from a clump of trees. She thought about the cheeky wink Bronnik had given her as he’d moved into position at the seaside start line, his body lean and powerful in the snug wetsuit, and she couldn’t suppress an affectionate smile.

“He’s coming!” Heloise’s older son exclaimed, hanging over the metal fence that edged the route. “See him? There, by the tree!”

And there he was, in a sweat-soaked T-shirt, long legs pumping through the final few hundred meters.

“Come on, Bronnik, run!” Heloise shrieked beside her, clapping her hands encouragingly. Her sons joined in, and Lacey completed the cheering section, whistling and shouting along with them.

Bronnik caught sight of them with about two hundred meters to go, and the wattage in his grin could’ve powered Cape Town for a week. He lifted his hand in a wave.

The boys were screeching, Heloise was jumping up and down, and Lacey simply beamed at the man who’d made her happier than she could have ever believed possible as he sprinted across the finish line.

Everything had fallen into place so easily, sometimes Lacey couldn’t believe she’d only known Bronnik for five months—it felt more like five years.

She’d gone back to the States only long enough to pack up her house and put it on the market. Then she’d moved into Bronnik’s airy home in Tamboerskloof, and after putting half of the proceeds from the sale of her house into savings, she invested the rest in a small, high-end bridal boutique. Heloise made a habit of recommending her boutique to anyone who contacted her about wedding cakes, and before long her simple, elegant, slightly Bohemian styles were a hit with a generation of young South Africans looking for an alternative to the cupcakes of tulle that comprised most of the rest of the city’s offerings. It was a risky venture, but so far it was paying off.

Bronnik made his way over to their motley assemblage, sweaty and panting, and after high-fiving his nephews and kissing his sister’s cheek, he held out his arms to her.

“I probably smell terrible,” he cautioned.

“Nothing new there.”

As Bronnik’s nephews dissolved into laughter he pulled her into a tight hug.

“Okay, you do smell terrible,” she mumbled into his chest, and he released her with a playful shrug.

“I tried to warn you.” He lowered his face to hers for a kiss.

They split off from Heloise and the boys as they went to collect Bronnik’s bike and drive back home so he could shower. Then they were off to Heloise’s house for a barbecue—or
braai
as Lacey was learning they were called in South Africa—for her husband’s birthday.

It was a bright but decidedly cool and somewhat windy winter day, yet Heloise’s ample backyard was packed with outdoors-loving South Africans in windbreakers and hats, strategically repositioning themselves every so often in order to avoid the smoke blowing from the grill. She knew only a few of the people in attendance, yet she found it easy to mingle and chat in the friendly, relaxed setting.

Bronnik stood with a group of men clustered around his brother-in-law as he manned the grill, and although he never missed a beat in the discussion, she knew he was secretly tracking her to make sure she was coping with all these new faces and didn’t need rescuing from any boring acquaintances. Occasionally he caught her eye and shot her a sunny grin, which never failed to warm her so that she hardly felt the crisp air.

As the evening wore on, she became so engrossed in a conversation with one of Heloise’s friends that when she finally excused herself to get another drink, she realized she hadn’t seen Bronnik in almost an hour.

“I’ve lost your brother,” she informed Heloise when they were both leaning into the refrigerator.

“I haven’t seen him, but my husband’s friends were discussing their property portfolios, and the boys have a new remote-control racecar upstairs. Where do you think he might be?”

She crept up the staircase, listening for Bronnik’s voice, but the second floor was quiet. After a brief deliberation she decided to check the younger boy’s room first—he probably had more toys.

She leaned her head around the doorjamb, and couldn’t stop the smile that immediately spread across her face. Bronnik was sitting on the floor with his back against the bed, holding a book in one hand as his nephew sat in his lap.

They were both sound asleep.

She crouched down beside the man she loved and trailed her fingers through his hair. It had been a long, exciting, wonderful journey since that night he’d told her he could sleep anywhere as he threw his pillow down on a hotel room floor, and she wouldn’t trade a minute of it.

His eyes fluttered open, and he offered a sheepish smile as he bundled his nephew against his chest and tucked the sleeping boy into bed, planting an affectionate kiss on the boy’s downy blond head.

“Time to go home, my superstar triathlete,” Lacey whispered, and tugged him out of the room.

When they walked through the front door of the house in Tamboerskloof, he nodded toward the back garden.

“Let’s sit outside for a minute. It’s a full moon.”

She frowned. Bronnik was so exhausted, she was sure he’d want to fall straight into bed. But she followed him out onto the patio, and let him pull her into his lap as he sat in one of their reclining lawn chairs.

They gazed up at the sky in silence, until he turned to her suddenly.

“I was going to do this earlier, at the finish line, but then Heloise was there and I lost my nerve.”

Her brows arched in surprise. What was he talking about?

“Then I thought maybe I’d bring it up when we were back at the house, before the barbecue, but we were running late, and I didn’t want them to wait for us before they started cooking.”

“You’ve lost me.” She twisted in his lap to face him fully. “Bring up what?”

He dug in his pocket, and as he withdrew a small, velvet-covered jewelry box, Lacey’s heart began to pound in her chest.

He held her left hand as he raised his eyes to meet hers.

“You’re the most amazing woman I’ve ever met, and I can’t believe how much better my life is with you in it. I love you, and I want us to be together for the rest of our lives.” He popped open the box to reveal a diamond ring so brilliant, it sparkled even in the dim light of the moon.