Authors: Melissa James
He roared off as fast as he could for the beach, hoping like hell Irish was waiting with the boat.
He swiveled down the left-hand path, thanking God for the relatively bump-free ride, and only a mile and a half to go—
“Mitch…dizzy…”
He had to strain to catch the words, and he knew she couldn’t last, not even that short mile and a half. He stopped the bike. “It’s okay, baby. I’ll fix it.” He reached into his backpack and got the coil of rope she’d used to hold Hana to her. “I’ll tie you to me, Lissa. Hold on as long as you can, sweetheart. Fall over if you have to, but fall on me—and try not to fall asleep. Once we’re on the beach I can do something to ease the pain.”
As soon as they were tied together, she fell against him, her breathing rapid and shallow. And in the grip of a terror he’d never known—terror of losing the one person he loved beyond life—he took off for the cove where he begged God the boat would be. “Just keep breathing, sweetheart. Don’t give up now, do you hear me?” He kept talking, babbling constantly he didn’t know what, until he reached the cliff above the cove, harsh, stark, inaccessible to any form of transport but human feet.
He’d have to carry her from here. Jolting her every damn step of the way down a small, winding step-path while the late-afternoon monsoonal wind clawed at them with heated paws—and, judging by the heavy, swirling clouds fast closing in, the rains that pelted the coast every afternoon in what was classically called in ironic understatement “the wet.”
With shaking fingers he untied the ropes binding them. Then he pulled out a thermal blanket Anson issued as standard on every job, and threw it on the grassy verge. Tenderly he lifted Lissa off the bike and onto the blanket facedown. Quickly he did what he could, cleaning the wound with antiseptic wipes and squirting antibiotic lotion into the hole. Then he pulled his T-shirt over his head and bound it with the rope over her back, arm and shoulder to stop the sluggish flow of blood.
Then he took everything they’d need from the bike, hoisted the backpacks over his shoulders, lifted the bike up, walked to the cliff’s edge and tossed it over.
“Salvage
that,
you miserable bastards,” he muttered when it crashed onto the rocks and broke apart in a quick burst of fire.
He checked over the little harbor. No sign of the boat.
Damn
Anson and his sacrifice-of-one-to-save-many ideals. If it cost Lissa her life—
With exquisite tenderness he cradled her in his arms, the thermal blanket wrapped around her, and started down the tortuous path to the beach below. Stepping over every rock with care, watching for every knot of grass, every lump of dirt.
Talking to her constantly.
“Almost there now, baby. We’re gonna make it.
You’re
gonna make it! Just hang on, okay?” Yet with every bend in the path, her breathing grew just a touch more rapid, a bit more shallow. But she had no fever, and he hung onto that single hope like a beacon shining in the night. Sweat mingling with tears down his face, he knew he would give
anything
if she lived through this. He’d give his job, his every ambition, sell all his planes—he’d give his life to see her safe.
His hope of gaining her love in return. Marrying her, making them all a family, baggage and all.
“Just stay alive, Lissa, you hear me? Even if you never love me back, you have to live!” he cried, unable to hold his fear inside. “I love you too much. I can’t lose you now—not like this. I’ll walk away again if I have to, but you’re not gonna die, baby. I can’t let you!”
Her lashes fluttered. “Mitch…” A threadbare sound. “Cold.”
No.
The fever had begun. He tried to move a little faster, but the sun was sinking low in the sky, and one jolting step, one trip over a rock could drive the bullet in deeper and touch a vital point. “Hang in there, sweetheart. I’ll build a fire when we’re down on the beach.”
“Can’t,” she whispered, coughing. “They’ll see it.”
“I don’t give a damn. I’ll shoot the lot of ’em for hurting you,” he growled, half to himself.
“No,” she murmured, her voice fading. “Not for me.”
His eyes swimming in tears, he looked down at her. “Yes, for you,” he murmured back, his voice filled with tender love. “I’d kill them all to save you, Lissa. I’d die for you. Only for you. Don’t you know that yet?”
But her eyes had closed again, and he didn’t know if she’d heard him or not. Or if she wanted to hear.
One of his tears fell on her face and gently rolled away.
Grimly he trudged onthe path as day became night, looking for a flicker of light, a movement, any sign that Anson had kept his word and the Nighthawks were here.
Nothing.
“Hang on, Liss,” he urged her, trying to infuse his warmth and strength into her, holding her as close as he dared.
She moaned. “So tired…” Her head lolled onto his bare chest. She was giving up.
“Hold on, Lissa! Do it for the kids. They love you, baby. They need you. Hang on for me, Liss,” he groaned in anguish. “I’d want to die if you die. Oh, God, baby, I love you so much. I need you so bad. I don’t care if you don’t love me right now—I’ll make you love me. Or I’ll leave if you don’t want me. Anything, Liss, anything—just don’t let go. You have to live!”
Finally, just as he reached the final stair, a late rain started falling in heavy, fat plops, following the fickle winds. He turned to the left toward the overhanging wall. “There’s a cave in the cliff face here, Liss. They won’t look for us now. They’ll go back to camp until the rain passes—which could be all night. Then Irish will be here with the boat, okay? I’m gonna build us a fire, baby. I’ll get you warm.”
She didn’t answer. Her face glowed pale and serene in the rising moonlight, dull and cold behind the clouds. She looked like an angel…or like an angel had just touched her.
An angel of death.
He swore softly and settled her on the blanket, tummy down, pulling off her wet cap to let her hair dry. He built a fire with the fuel bricks and waterproof matches that were part of Anson’s usual survival kit, and set water to boil in the tiny billy.
Lissa moaned as she turned instinctively to the warmth.
He removed his crude bandage from her back with barely any difficulty and cut her shirt in a swift rip of scissors but didn’t take it off. She needed all the warmth she could get right now. Using a flashlight, he checked the wound for the dreaded red line his medic course in the RAAF told him to watch out for. Surely there hadn’t been time for systemic infection—
No line, thank God—but the wound was puckered and dark, and his makeshift pressure bandage hadn’t stopped the bleeding; and though the ooze was slow, it was constant. It had soaked through his shirt, and was still seeping.
And he’d been relieved when the shirt came off so easily.
“Idiot,” he muttered beneath his breath. “I should have known it meant it was still bleeding. Please, God, don’t let the bullet have touched anything vital! Lissa.” He touched her face, soft but urgent. “Lissa, wake up, sweetheart.”
No response. She didn’t even move.
He didn’t dare shake her, and he couldn’t give her a shot of painkiller. If that bullet was lodged in her lung, he—
He frowned.
Idiot!
If he dressed the wound properly now, she’d barely feel it—or it would wake her up. Either way, he’d have a head start on the infection.
He grabbed the sterile kit from his backpack, washed his has in antiseptic solution in the rain, heated his hands as long as he dared over the fire and started washing out her wound with saline solution and iodine. She shuddered a little and moaned again, but that was all the intense sting did for her.
He watched in dread as the strong antiseptic did almost nothing for her wound. It continued to swell in a slow, relentless red march across her skin.
He had to probe the wound, see how far in the bullet went—and how close it lay to what he dreaded most. Thank God, her aorta was safe on the other side; but that was cold comfort if another artery or major vein was nicked or, worse, severed, and bleeding internally. If she bled into her lungs—
Stop it. She’s still breathing. You’d have known about any pneumothorax by now, or big internal bleed. She’d be—
He shuddered, unable to even contemplate the word.
He poured more iodine and some local anesthetic gel into the wound, pulled on one of the sterile latex gloves and inserted his little finger into the hole.
Lissa cried out in anguish.
“Don’t move, baby.” Relief clenched his gut. She wouldn’t have woken from a coma that easily, even under such painful stimulus. “I need to see how far the bullet’s gone in, all right?”
“Mitch—”
“Let me help you, Lissa. Let me do what I can for you.”
“Can’t…take it out,” she moaned. “Lodge it—more deeply.”
“No, I swear I won’t. I—”
“It’s…near…pulmonary artery,” she whispered. “Third…intercostal…muscle hurts like hell. If you move it—”
He got the picture and broke out in a cold sweat. “How do you know?”
“Part-time…paramedic. Football season. St John’s Ambulance. Did…course…two years ago.” A wistful smile crossed her pale, perfect lips. “Good way…to meet…nice guys, Mum said.”
He almost laughed at that. “What do I do?”
“Take…your finger out,” she uttered through gritted teeth. “Slow. Gentle.”
He did as he was told. “I was so scared you’d gone into a coma. I didn’t know what to do.”
“Have to sleep. Didn’t…get much…last night. Kept hoping you’d come to me…seduce me.” Another sweet, ghost-like smile flitted over her pale, sweating face. “Sleep…best thing now. Pack wound with something to stop bleeding. Need…antiseptic.”
“I have iodine, and antibiotic cream in my first-aid kit.”
“Weak stuff,” she scoffed. “Need…big guns. Got…garlic?”
“I don’t want to roast you over the fire, babe,” he joked back. “I’m trying to keep you alive. I’ll think about eating you at a later date—but it won’t be with c.”
Another tiny smile. “Idiot. Powerful…antibiotic, antifungal—anti-everything. Have you got…any?”
He sighed. “Sorry.” Then he clicked his fingers. “But when I toured the island earlier this year, the villagers said something about a plant with medicinal properties growing wild on the hillside above this beach—all over the north of the island. I can’t remember what it was they said it did, but you have to use the root. It’s got a purple flower. Does that help?”
“Stop blabbing,” she whispered. “It’s all we have. So go and get it.”
He poured more iodine into the wound, making her swear, then covered it with a gauze square. “I’ll be back as fast as I can, sweetheart, okay?”
“I’m not…going anywhere.” Her lashes fluttered down. In the light of the fire her face looked pale and spiritual, with a peace that terrified him.
He slung the rifle over his shoulder and bolted out into the teeming rain.
And he thanked God for Lissa’s ridiculous antibiotic, antifungal, anti-everything speech, for, sneaking down the path, led by torchlight, were at least half a dozen rebels.
H
e had no time for strategy. Lissa’s life lay in his hands. He took aim and fired just in front of the lead torch, then ran forward ten yards and fired another half dozen shots. Before their startled yelps became shots, he rolled to the ground and sent off another round.
A sudden scream told him he’d got in a lucky shot. Unable to afford an international incident, he’d fired merely to hurt, not to kill, and the frightened yammers told him t
hey thought he wasn’t alone.
Good. From what he’d seen of these so-called rebels…
Oh, yeah. Just as he’d thought. One more shot, and they turned tail and bolted up the path, falling all over each other on the slimy rock stairs to escape. Another shot, and they were screaming. The torches flailed comically in the air as they pushed past each other to get off the stairs first.
Whew. He wiped streaming rain from his face, immediately replaced by more. He needed to get up those stairs and fast. He had to scare ’em right out of the area, so he could find this healing plant for Lissa without worrying they’d sneak back and get to her first. And what they’d do to her, a helpless, injured woman, before they sent out a ransom note—if she made it that far—
He trudged up the stairs more quietly but just as grimly as he’d come down, firing into the air in case the cowards waited at the top.
The clearing was empty. He flashed his light on the path and saw the fast-filling divots in the mud going in the opposite direction, proof of their hasty exit.
But they’d be back soon enough, with reinforcements.
He had enough worries on his mind right now. Drawing in a harsh breath, he turned and searched the hillside for the telltale purple flower.
Dear God, let it be a late bloomer….
A few withered purple flowers told him where the plants grew—but they were long past their prime. He gathered what he could, hoping the root was still strong and fresh enough to help Lissa. As quickly as he dared he descended the rugged path down the cliff face, praying for a long-overdue miracle.
For Lissa’s sake.
The pain was searing, burning her from the inside. She could feel her own blood, as hot as the fever within, trickling out from the gauze square Mitch had put on it, itching her. And she was thirsty, so thirsty. Her stomach grumbled from lack of food, but she’d only throw up if she ate.
Mitch had been gone too long.
The shots were long over. What if…what if he was lying facedown like her, lying in the rain with a bullet in his back or his chest? What if he were lying out there dying, and she was helpless to go to him?
A chill hit her, and despite the heat of the night, her growing fever and the blazing little fire, she shivered. “Mitch,” she moaned. She couldn’t afford to move; she could feel the heavy pulse of her blood pumping through the artery right beside the bullet. Any sudden movement could push the bullet right in, or into her upper lung. She had the children to think of. They couldn’t afford to lose both parents—
I’d want to die if you die.
“Mitch!” Without conscious decision she tried to struggle to her feet, but only flopped back down after two inches.
“Baby, what are you doing? You could move the bullet!”
“Mitch,” she whispered on a sob, thankfulness flooding her at even the terror in his voice—she’d take him any way he came right now. “You’re alive.”
“Of course I am.” His voice was soothing. “With your anti-everything plants. A whole handful of ’em.”
“There…there were those shots…and you didn’t come back. I…was so scared….” Her whisper was disgustingly weak and broke on a small sob.
“Oh, baby, I’m sorry.” He lay down beside her, looking at her in solemn tenderness, caressing her hair. “The rebels were on their way down the cliff. I scared ’em off. I should have come back after the shots, told you I was all right. I’m just so used to working alone.”
“That…that’s not how it works, you dork!” She sniffed back tears. “You
tell
me what…what you’re do-doing. You
stay
with me. W-we’re…together, Mitch McCluskey, you hear me? You don’t just…just—” Her fear wouldn’t be denied any longer. The tears spilled over. “I can’t lose you, Mitch!”
“You won’t, sweetheart. Ever.”
“Hold me,” she whispered. “I need you.”
He carefully laid his arm around her, avoiding her wouI wish I could, Liss, but I’m too scared of what I’ll do to you.”
“You could kiss me.” She heard her own voice, weak and soft and shaking. “Please. That couldn’t hurt.”
“No,” he agreed, his eyes full of agony. “No, baby, that couldn’t hurt.” He closed his eyes then, and gently, tenderly kissed her, bumping noses because of the awkward facedown position.
Overwhelming beauty. Blinding gentleness. He kissed her as if she were a rare, priceless antique that might shatter with a strong touch. And, oh, this was what she needed, his tenderness amid a world that made no sense, spinning out of control into pain and degradation and bullets in her back.
A world where she’d give almost anything to hear those words she’d so despised—no, the words she’d been so damn
afraid
of—only last night.
“Thank you,” she whispered, when he finally broke the kiss.
“You’re welcome.” He touched her face, and a frown of concern replaced the melting sweetness in his eyes. “You’re sweating. You’ve got a fever.”
Without warning the darkness began taking over; she felt her mind being sucked down into blankness.
No. Just a few more moments. He has to know how I feel!
“You’re everything to me. Best friend, lover…my only love. Stay with me…grow…old. Drown…in laughter…die…in—” She sighed as the relentless hands pulled her under, and her eyes closed.
Mitch shook his head. A tender, wry smile twisted his lips. “Ah, Lissa, why is the timing always wrong for us, huh?” He sat up and looked at the tubal roots in his fist. “Now what do I do with these things?” He blew out a tired sigh, rubbing his forehead. “Pack the wound, I guess.”
He walked back out into the rain and washed the dirt off the plants, cleaned his hands with antiseptic, cut the stems from the roots and dipped them into the slow-boiling water to sterilize them as much as possible.
He frowned after that. “Liss, I need you now. What do I do with this to help you?” Feeling helpless, he squirted more antibiotic gel into the wound, but it came back up with the slow-pulsing blood flow.
Pulsing. Oh, God, no. No! She’d tried to get up to find him because he’d been so damn long. If the bullet had nicked the artery— The tiny hospital here had been shelled two weeks ago, the only doctor and two nurses taken at gunpoint. The nearest hospital now was in Papua, New Guinea, or Darwin, two hours’ flight away. She’d never make it in time.
He closed his eyes, fighting panic. “Damn it, McCluskey, fight this. Fight for her!” His eyes snapped open. Getting out his knife, he sterilized it and cut the ends of the roots open, then stuffed the dripping open ends down the wound, one after the other, sandwiched with the antibiotic and anesthetic gel, bound it hard with iodine-packed gauze, taped it down, then put his stiff, blood-soaked shirt over it and tied it to her, making sure no part of the rope touched her skin. He opened his emergency flask of water, dropped soluble paracetamol into it, opened two capsules of antibiotics and shook the damn thing to Kingdom come.
Then with exquisite care ed her over, laying her across his lap. “Lissa, sweetheart, you have to have some fluids. Wake up, Lissa. Come on, help me now.”
Her head flopped back; she groaned his name. Whether in need or protest he didn’t know, and he had no time to sort it out. He lifted her head into the crook of his arm, kissing her cheeks, her eyes, her soft, unresponsive mouth. “Wake up, Liss. Come on, baby, come back to me.”
She stirred. “Sleep,” she mumbled.
“In a minute, sweetheart. Just have a drink first.”
Her lashes fluttered. “Thirsty…”
“Good girl. Open your mouth.”
Her lips parted, and before she could speak, he dribbled some liquid down. With the first touch of water on her tongue, she moaned and made gulping motions. He poured it down as slowly as he could, as long as he dared, until she fell asleep in his arms.
He watched her dreaming face in dancing firelight and a thin slant of moonlight coming in from the cave mouth: pale, carved marble and warm, living flesh. A face to launch a million ships: she was love and laughter and tender memory from child to woman, with a heart so rare and beautiful he’d never even tried to replace it. He belonged to her. Totally. Completely. Always.
“I love you,” he whispered, knowing the words so were so pitifully inadequate for the bursting tide of emotion inside him. A tide of love so long held back in fear it would not be denied now—when it could all be too late.
It couldn’t be too late. She had to live!
He buried his face in her hair, its usual sweet sunshine scent replaced with mud and blood and sweat and pain. Suffering.
Lissa was unconscious, in danger of losing her life. Because of him. No matter how she exonerated him for it, he alone was responsible for where they were right now.
He didn’t deserve her. What the hell had ever made him think he had a hope of making her love him? It was always going to end like this—in mud and blood and death. A place where he fit in, where he’d always belonged, but she didn’t. She deserved a long, happy life, a husband who adored her and whom she would love in return, children, safety. Not this. Not hiding out in a dank cave on a bloody, war-torn island, slowly bleeding to death while he sat holding her in helpless anguish and his boss made up his mind about whether to save unknown people somewhere else in the world or just a couple of unimportant operatives.
“Damn you, Anson,” he growled, looking out the cave mouth for impossible salvation. And somewhere in the silver-black lapping waves, a light flickered once. And again.
“Thank God!” He laid her with slow, gentle care back on the blanket and bolted out into the pounding rain with his flare.
Moments after the red smoke faded, white smoke joined it.
He frowned and returned to the cave to get everything ready.
Within five minutes two strangers walked up to him. Familiar strangers somehow…they even looked alike.
They looked like—
One grinned and nued the other. “I think it’s coming back.”
The other nodded, unsmiling. “He never saw me much, and you were a bit young when he saw you last.” He watched Mitch with unnerving intensity. “Mother’s Day ten years ago. Before you dumped our sister while she was pregnant and left her so depressed she got onto crack.”
Mitch gasped as the final pieces of the strange puzzle of who’d threatened Lissa fell into place. “Darren. Will?”
“Bingo.” The unsmiling one, Darren, lifted his hand. The cold barrel of his gun gleamed dully in the moonlight. “Get that pretty woman of yours, McCluskey. You’re both coming for a ride on our boat.”
Lissa woke to a strange sensation—little jolting movements and dripping water on her skin.
Groggy, yet her mind clear, she opened her eyes. Two strangers carried her on a makeshift stretcher toward the water.
So the cavalry had come! “Mitch?”
“Sorry, pretty Lissa. Your boyfriend’s, um, a bit tied up right now.”
She turned her face. The man she’d last seen in a gray suit in Canberra smiled at her as he carried his end of the stretcher. “I don’t think you can see him right now. Oops…he fell down again. Shame about that.”
The man carrying the other end said, “Don’t bother hoping he’s gonna try anything, Lissa. He knows if he gets up to any tricks, we’ll just drop you.” The swishing sounds told her they were crossing the water now, probably to a dinghy. “See, Lissa, there’s a bit you don’t know about your boy here. You swallowed his story about bringing the kid home—about the footage he took—but he lied to impress you. He’s not a big-time spy. He’s nobody’s hero. He’s just an unwanted foster kid with a chip on his shoulder and a million lies to look respectable.”
“Cut the crap, Will. You’re not her type. Did McCluskey tell you he got custody of our nephews from our sister?” the intense one demanded of her. “That when she wanted them back, he used the fact that she’d been on crack in the courts, publicly humiliating her to keep sole custody? That the shame sent her back down the spiral into using crack, just as she’d got clean?”
He jerked his arm, and Lissa heard Mitch make a muffled sound.
“Oh, dear, he fell down again,” Will remarked with a laugh. “And in the water, too.”
Feeling like the silent viewer of a crazy good-cop, bad-cop routine, she decided to up the ante, inch by cautious inch. “So which of you is the cop?”
Darren, the one who’d touched and mauled her, was the one who stumbled, with a vicious curse.
She smiled at him. “So you’re the screenwriter of this bad
Dragnet
rerun, huh?” she asked, coining Anson’s term for it. “Is Will obsessed with getting revenge for Kerin, too, or did you force him into it?”
“If I let go of my end of the blanket you’re dead—and don’t think I won’t because I happen to be hot for you,” Darren growled. “Then who’s gonna take those precious kids of yours—two of whom belong to us?”
“I see,” she said quietly, fighting for breath. “How many…people have you killed to get to Mitch? How many…courts allow convicted murderers to have custody of kids? And, Will, that’s what you’ll…be if he drops the blanket—if you haven’t killed other people already. Even if you haven’t…and he has, you’re an accessory. I hear that’s about…ten years inside.”
She heard Will drag in a quick breath, and wanted to do the same; her small store of strength was fading with each word. But she made herself speak to Darren. “If I’ve worked out that you’re a cop—and a Federal one, I’d guess, by the way you tried to lead me away from the Feds by making me believe ASIO did immigration stings—what’s the bet everyone else who needs to know already knows by now? How long do you think it’ll be before they check into McCluskey’s past to see who could possibly have a grudge against him? How long until they check your computer to see if you’ve dug into his files, or they talk to your boss to see if you’ve been asking about him?”