Authors: Melissa James
Darren whitened so fast she knew she’d scored a direct hit.
“Maybe all you can be accused of now is playing a malicious prank,” she said quietly. “Isn’t it time you thought about the rest of your life and where it’ll head if you go any further?”
“At least I’ll have a life,” he snarled. “Kerin doesn’t have that luxury. You have the only things that mattered to her in the end—her kids and McCluskey.”
“And how would Kerin feel if she knew you killed the father of her children and left them alone?”
“Shut up!” Darren screamed. “I swear I’ll drop this—or I’ll shoot McCluskey this minute!”
Will said softly, “Daz, think about it. She’s right. Kerin loved the guy, loved her kids. She wouldn’t want this.”
“I know she loved her kids. That’s why I snatched them for her back in Bondi. That’s why I’ll get them away from this creep now. Kerin was delusional about McCluskey. She
loved
him,” he sneered, “and look where it got her. Where did it get her, McCluskey?” he yelled. “You refused to marry her when she got pregnant. You threw her out like trash. What the hell’s wrong with you, to treat our sister that way? Answer me!”
“Uh, Darren? He can’t,” Will said, still quiet, a strange note lacing his voice. “You taped his mouth when you tied him to the blanket.”
“He can answer when he’s on the boat then.”
Within seconds they’d reached a small rubber dinghy. “Lay her down carefully,” Darren ordered, sharp and terse. “I don’t want her hurt.”
“You’ve been saying that from the time you started watching her,” Will remarked, “and every time you listen to her talk, or watch the videotapes you made in Canberra.”
“She had nothing to with Kerin,” Darren retorted. “It’s only McCluskey we want.”
“I don’t want either of them—well, maybe I want her, but I don’t want revenge at all. I swear to God, Daz, this is getting downright loopy. If you weren’t my brother…”
“Well, I am,” Darren snapped, “and I’m the one who lost my twin! So pull the creep in and start the bloody motor before his mate fixes the hole in his boat and gets here!”
Lissa, lying on the floor of the dinghy in helpless anguish, watched as Mitch, hands bound and mouth taped, was pulled in by the hair and shoulders, landing headfirst. Darren ripped the duct tape from Mitch’s mouth and yelled obscenities in between demands for him to answer his questions about his relationship with Kerin.
“How did you know where we were?” she asked Will quietly.
Will sighed and placed the edges of the blanket over her to keep out the worst of the rain, then started the dinghy’s motor, heading for the boat. “I was the one who followed you in Canberra, but Daz took my place to meet you and planted the bug down your top. He hoped McCluskey would find it. That was the point of the cheap bugs in the first place, in case you blabbed—to make us look like amateurs. When he groped you, he slipped a state-of-the-art heat detector in your jeans pocket, a tiny, flat one he knew couldn’t be found on a quick sweep. We counted on your not having time to wash your jeans—and being a single mum, you wouldn’t just chuck them out. You’d pack them and take them with you,” he murmured wryly. “So we headed north when you did and saw you get the kid. We flew here on a charter plane ahead of you, and hired a boat when we knew we couldn’t get through the rebel-held areas like you had. We waited for you to head for the coast, and we got there before your cavalry, whoever they are.”
“Shut up!” Darren screamed. “For Pete’s sake, Will, can’t you keep anything to yourself?”
“I’m a medical student, not a Fed,” Will shot back. “I’m distracting Lissa from her pain, keeping her mind on other things. That’s what
I’ve
been trained to do!”
“Can you help Lissa, Will?” Mitch asked, low. “She needs help now. There’s medical stuff in my backpack—”
Darren’s arm shot out, connecting with the side of Mitch’s face. “She’s not your concern, get it? You’ve lost her. For once you’re gonna learn how it feels to lose the other bloody half of your heart!” With savage ferocity he slammed his elbow into Mitch’s temple.
Mitch slumped at the side of the dinghy while Lissa watched, unable to move, her mind spinning. But she had to help him somehow. “If you think you’re going to punish him…by taking me away, you’re way…off base,” she said quietly, struggling with the words. “He doesn’t…love me like that. We’re old friends.”
“Old friends who have a great ol’ time in bed,” Darren shot back. “If that’s the sort of friendship you give out, babe, you must have a line of blokes at your door every day.”
She dragged in a breath, feeling the air go out less than usual, trapped in the aching lung, twisting in sharp-edged points. “We did nothing until I…told him about the surveillance, and your threats. And even then it was all…an act. Everything you heard…an act.”
Darren told her what he thought of that, succinct and crude.
She sighed. “You heard what I said…about my ex-husband…about his not wanting me? That there’d been…no man since? Do you think I have the sexual self-esteem to make this up? Mitch…doesn’t love me.” Every breath was agony, but she kept forcing the words to save Mitch’s life. “He needs…a mother…for the boys. A family. I’m…just an…ideal…to him. That’s all.”
Will took her pulse. “She’s not good, Daz,” he reported quietly. “I think she’s telling the truth here.”
Darren looked at her and nodded. “You’re right. She’s really got no idea.” He chuckled a little. “Since it makes no difference to him, but it might help you feel better about yourself, I’ll show you something.” He lifted her left hand in his. “See that ring? Kerin found it in his drawer. She thought it was for her. She got so excited. But when she told him she’d found it, he said if he ever married her—
if
—he’d buy her another ring. That this one belonged to the girl he loved.” Then he reached into Mitch’s pants and retrieved his wallet. “Then he showed her this.”
He flipped open the wallet—and in the money fold lay photos. Picture after picture, memory after memory, faded, folded, well viewed, well loved.
All of her, from girl to woman.
A stupid photo-booth shot of the three of them: Tim, Mitch and Lissa, all pulling goofy faces. A shot her mother had taken of her at an Irish Eisteddfod. Another one of the day she’d taught him a riverdance. All dressed up for Tim’s formal night and her own special night.
Her engagement night. Her wedding.
But not with Tim. Photos of her with Mitch.
Darren stuffed them back in the wallet and into Mitch’s backpack. “I’m telling you, no man carries around a bunch of photos of his childhood mate or any bloody ideal. With a guy it’s always sex.
I
think of sex when I think of you. So does Will. At least seventy percent of the male population thinks of sex when they look at you. You’re a bloody gorgeous woman, and probably the only person who doesn’t know it is you.” He chuckled. “It tickles me that he never got any after all the years of waiting. All those years obsessing over you, keeping away from women because of you, and when he finally comes home he gets nothing!” He laughed. “Oh, yeah, if I never got revenge for Kerin, you already did it for me. Poor jerk, I almost feel sorry for him.”
Lissa closed her eyes, wondering how on earth she’d ever been so stupid, so blind that a stranger could see so clearly at a glance what she never had. For in every photo—photos she had copies of at home—the look in his eyes said it all.
Mitch loved her. No idealized woman, no Madonna fantasy, no home-and-hearth girl. He
loved
her, boy to girl, man to woman. Then and now. And always. Maybe it had been faulty at times. Maybe he didn’t know everything about her, d’t understand what she needed. But he still loved her. Just as she loved him.
The dinghy rocked as it approached the boat. A fresh wave of pain seized her and she cried out, choked off as her right lung suddenly became gripped in an unseen fist, unable to push the air out, locked hard and choking.
“Darren, we got a real problem here! Her breathing and pulse is way too fast—and I can’t hear any lung sounds. I think she’s got a pneumothorax from a broken rib,” she heard Will say tersely as she slipped into unconsciousness again. “We have to get her onboard bloody fast or she’ll die!”
“I
think she’s got a pneumothorax. We have to get her on the boat fast or she’ll die—but move her carefully. I need the floor beneath her to get the air out.”
Will’s words hit Mitch with the force of a jackhammer to the brain. He’d long since come to, and though his head pounded and he was pretty sure his left wrist was broken, he knew his only chance had come—a chance to save Lissa at least. He had to get her to a hospital—fast.
He had to get her away from Darren, who’d obviously inherited the same unstable emotional state Kerin had. He’d formed a passion for Lissa, that much was obvious. If he got Lissa alone and helpless, he’d lock her away, like Kerin tried to do with him—like that movie that still made him sick,
The Butterfly Collector.
He had to destroy Darren’s plans for her and make the most of what weapons he had to get her free.
He just hoped to God Liss was playing chicken with them to give him time—or that Will could save her.
He’d almost worked his hands free. They’d barely notice him while they got Lissa onboard.
He didn’t move a muscle when Darren snapped, “Check him. I’ll carry her, but I won’t leave him unless I know he can’t move.”
“Jeez, Daz, just get her up there!” Will released the rope binding him to Lissa’s blanket-stretcher and checked one of his eyes, flashing a light.
Mitch flinched involuntarily despite his best effort not to.
“He’s out,” Will yelled.
“Tie the dinghy to the boat, bring his bags and lift the gangplank up with you when you come. He can stay there until I want him—if he doesn’t fall off first. What a shame that’d be,” Darren said, with a hard laugh.
Will flipped him over, using a knife to cut his bonds, then placed the backpacks into his right hand. “He’s still tied up tight, and by the looks of his left wrist he won’t be trying any Houdini stuff for a few weeks. Now get the poor woman onboard so I can help her…and don’t hitch her around. Keep her as still as possible, or I swear she’ll be dead in minutes!”
With a swift mental resolve to make sure Anson went easy on Will, Mitch crept out of the boat, carrying his and Lissa’s backpacks,he fast-dwindling but precious bags of tricks. Tricks even Darren, an obvious Fed, wouldn’t know about.
Darren Burstall was a Federal cop, and a renegade one. Damn if Lissa hadn’t worked that out before him—and her logic had been irrefutable. Smart, fast, fit and willing to learn, selfless and incredibly brave, trying to save him while in excruciating pain. Anson was right—she’d make a first-class Nighthawk. He had no right to stop her, even to think about stopping her. He knew that now. She didn’t belong to him, never had belonged to him, much as he wanted her to. It was her life.
If he could save her first.
He used a rope hanging on the side of the boat to swarm up to the deck, finally grateful for all that ridiculous rope climbing in his combat training with the RAAF. His cranky old sergeant’s bluster had ensured he could climb quick and quiet, even with a broken wrist—and any noises of pain he made were masked by the ocean’s lapping and the rain.
When he reached the top, he peered over, trying to make out where they’d taken her.
They must be inside the cabin.
Whew.
He carefully laid the backpacks down and tumbled onto the deck, holding the rope still and landing curled on his back to minimize the thump. He snatched up the bags and crept toward the light inside the large cabin.
Tense words drifted to him before he reached the door. “Will you get out of my face? I need the light!”
“Can you help her?” Darren asked, sounding frantic.
“Not until you move!”
“I’m gonna kill McCluskey with my bare hands if she dies. What sort of weirdo is he, to get his kicks killing innocent women who love him? First he leaves Kerin to die, now Lissa! How is she?”
“I need a bloody Angiocath—but a wide-gauge needle and syringe’ll do for now, to get the air out that’s trapped in her lung,” Will growled. “If you want to help her, stop pacing the floor and look in the first-aid kit.”
Mitch pushed back into the wall as the door flew open and Darren stalked out, muttering to himself about taking Lissa away where no one would hurt her again.
Mitch bolted into the cabin, holding out another sterile kit and a whole set of syringes to Will, who merely smiled at his frantic entrance. “Bullet’s lodged near the third intercostal.”
“Thank God.” Will started swabbing the site an inch above the bullet hole. “If it had been the second we’d be up the creek. If I can pierce through the second intercostal without moving her broken rib we have a good chance to get her breathing again.”
“Thank you, Will,” he said quietly, then he slipped back out.
He was risking his life, but he didn’t care. Darren might be crazy, but he had one thing right. He’d left Kerin to die by neglect—by saving himself from her jealousy and overwhelming obsession with him—and now Lissa was dying because of him.
He would let the truth impale him with its anguish later. He’d punish himself for the sin of loving too much. He had to stop Darren from taking Lissa now. He had to help Will sav
But a sudden yell told him Darren had gone to check on his prisoner and found the cage empty.
He stepped out of hiding and shoved the cabin door shut with his hip and faced Darren, who was standing in front of him with a savage grin, pointing his own assault rifle at him.
Darren grinned. “This is for Kerin,” he cried over the noise of the storm, and Mitch faced him squarely. It didn’t matter. Lissa, Matt and Luke and Jenny had to stay safe—and if Darren’s revenge died with him, it was no more than he deserved.
The sudden loud whirring of helicopter blades created a wet, blasting wind on them before the blinding light fell right where they stood. “Drop your weapon!” came the disembodied voice of Anson himself.
From there everything passed in a blur. Darren was there one moment, the next he wasn’t, just as operatives came swarming down ropes suspended from the chopper. “Get down, Skydancer!” Braveheart yelled, firing over the side of the boat.
A roar, and the dinghy was off into the night.
Mitch grabbed a walkie-talkie from Irish and yelled into it, “Countrygirl’s down. Needs immediate medical assistance.”
“We’ll lower a stretcher,” Anson replied curtly.
He flung open the door. Lissa looked pale and tired, but she was breathing again; that pallid gray shade was gone. Will, drenched in sweat, nodded. “The needle did the trick for now. She’s breathing normally, but I don’t know for how long.”
“Thank God…and you,” Mitch said, with a heartfelt sigh of relief. “The chopper has a stretcher to take her to Darwin.”
“Where’s my brother?”
“On the dinghy—with operatives not far behind.”
Will sighed. “I thought of this as a game,” he said quietly. “A bit of stupid dress-up fun, playing Spy versus Spy. A way to pass summer break until I started my internship. Daz was obsessed with this, so I offered to do the legwork for him, be visible for him—he’s traceable through the Feds, and I’m totally clean. I knew they wouldn’t know who I was. And, yeah, I wanted to make life uncomfortable for you, see Matt and Luke—I don’t know. I never realized how unstable Darren is—or how dangerous—until we got here.” His eyes were haunted. “I never wanted it to go this far. I thought I could stop him from hurting you, and others—but I had no control at all.” He sighed. “He told me he killed some hacker in Sydney.”
Mitch nodded; he’d tell Anson. He wanted nothing to do with running Kerin’s brother down or with the Nighthawks at all right now. “Let’s get Lissa on the chopper.”
“I should go with her, in case. I know I’m not qualified—”
“You saved her life,” Mitch replied simply, and swept his hand to the door. “Let’s get the stretcher.”
Minutes later, with tender care, inch by inch, a carefully tied Lissa was lifted onto the chopper by pulley rope.
d Will swarmed up the ropes moments after, both immediately looking to Lissa, to be sure the needle and syringe hadn’t moved in her transportation.
“Who’s this?” Anson demanded, his face immediately filled with suspicion.
“This is Will. A medical student who happened to be in Tumah-ra at the time,” he reported briefly, checking Lissa’s pulse while Will worked on her chest. “He saved Lissa’s life. We need him for the flight to Darwin.”
“He’s the rogue we couldn’t trace,” Anson growled. “I saw his picture. What the hell’s going on here, McCluskey?”
Mitch met his boss’s eyes. “He just saved Lissa’s life—and mine. He had almost no part in this, except for following us in Canberra. Darren Burstall’s the one you want—he’s a rogue Fed, and my ex’s twin brother. Will was just trying to stop him from getting in trouble. As far as anyone needs to know, Will’s just a medical student on holiday.” He caressed Lissa’s face, so pure and cold in the darkness of the chopper.
“I don’t like it,” Anson growled.
“I don’t like the fact that you’re worrying over Will while Lissa’s lying here half-dead!” he returned, low-voiced for her sake. “For God’s sake, Anson, this was personal, aimed at me, and nothing to do with your precious bloody Nighthawks—so tell Wildman to head for Darwin now!”
“One of us has to get off,” the pilot, code name Wildman, called in over the walkie-talkie. “We need two chopper pilots—”
He snatched the walkie-talkie from Anson. “There are two, Wildman—you and me,” he snapped. “And one man with medical qualifications to help Countrygirl. So either Anson goes or Linebacker, because it sure as hell won’t be me.” He met his boss’s eyes in grim challenge. “We did what you asked, and she’s almost dead. I’m a civilian from now on—and so is my fiancée, until she tells you otherwise or signs a contract. Your first duty is to get us out of here. We’re both injured.”
Anson nodded curtly. “I’ll go. Linebacker can come with me. I’ll steer the boat into harbor, Irish can take the other, and we’ll try to get the people of Ka-Nin-Put out. The rebels have started torching one side of the village. The people are heading for the beach, so it’ll make our job easier. Take these three civilians to Darwin,” Anson called to Wildman.
“Roger that, sir,” Wildman called back.
Without another word Anson and Linebacker, their newest operative, slithered down the rope to the boat. They heard Anson yelling instructions as he landed on deck.
Wildman turned the chopper in the direction of Darwin, the northernmost city in Australia. The last Mitch saw of Tumah-ra was a blazing fire in the jungle, the blasting of mortar bombs and the streaking silver fire of bullets in the night.
Somehow it felt like a classic script. Lissa felt light shoot pain into her eyes, even beneath her heavy eyelids. She stirred and moaned.
Heroine comes to slowly, to the gentle touch of the man she loves holding her han
“Hey, sweet thing. About time you came back to us.”
She stirred again and lifted her lids, feeling something akin to mild shock. “Tim?”
Her ex-husband, holding her hand, grinned at her. He looked pale, strained, completely exhausted, his face stark against the plain antiseptic white of the room. “Yeah, Liss, it’s me, since I’m definitely no angel. How are you feeling now?”
She looked around at the hospital room, realizing she was sitting up, not lying down. Chest injury, then. “W-why…are you…? Where’s…kids?”
“They’re here, too. You might call this our first joint family holiday—thanks to you. We’re all in the great never-never to see you.” He caressed her hand. “Ron’s here, too. We closed the gym for a few weeks until you’re better.”
Her mind felt clogged. Her last memory was something about a plant. “Never-never?”
Tim laughed. “Yeah, you know, the Northern Territory ads— ‘You’ll never-never know if you never-never go.’ We’re all up here in Darwin—and spending all our time in the hospital.”
“Darwin,” she whispered. “Wasn’t I here the other day?”
Tim lost his smile. “Yeah, darlin’, and in Tumah-ra after that. You were shot, Liss. Mitch called me from the chopper to say a plane would bring us all here. Your parents are arriving tonight from Monte Carlo. Alice should be here tomorrow from Sydney.” He kissed her lips gently. “Thank God you’re okay, Liss. You had us all bloody scared.”
She smiled at him, feeling an overwhelming rush of love. “I guess I’m useful for something, if only emotional shocks to my family.”
The hand holding hers shook. “For a hell of a lot more than that. Don’t you know you mean the world to us all? I adore you, Lissa. I always have. I always will. The flight here was the most terrifying time of my life. Don’t do that to me again, you hear? You’re not just the mother of my daughter, you’re my best friend. I couldn’t stand to lose you.”
The tears in his eyes splashed over onto their linked hands.
A quiet realization came to her in that moment. He might have made a terrible husband, but Tim was a wonderful friend, the best she could hope to have or ask for. He always had been. And she’d lost sight of that for so many years. “I love you, too—but I’d love you more if you got me some water,” she croaked.
He tilted a glass to her lips. “Do you know that’s the first time you’ve said that to me since I left you?”
She gulped down the water, seeing the pain in his eyes and feeling a twinge of conscience. She realized how right Mitch had been about punishing Tim instead of thanking him for setting her free. Free to find real love. “Yeah, well, all good things come to those who wait,” she joked, to lighten the mood. “Where’s…everyone else?”
“If you mean Mitch, I pushed him out of here about two hours ago,” Tim replied, getting to the heart question with his usual accuracy. He knew her too well. “He hadn’t slept in two days. He’ll be back any minute, probably. What the hell have you been doing to the poor guy, Liss?”
“Is he all right?” She heard the frantic note in her voice. “He…he isn’t hurt, is he? That man—” Patchy memory assailed her—the stumbling run to the boat. She gasped, “He wanted to kill him. Mitch! Is he—”
“Apart from a broken wrist, he’s fine…physically. But he hates himself for what happened to you. If you ask me, he’s gonna walk as soon as he knows you’re okay.”