CROSSFIRE (32 page)

Wesley. Dear God, Wesley.

Her heart kicked, hard. She acted on pure animal instinct, grabbing the fire poker and lifting it above her head. Wesley caught her eye and rolled, giving her a clear shot. She slammed the instrument of forged iron down with a sickening thud.

The front door flew open and in swarmed a SWAT team in full gear. "Police!" they shouted. "Hold it right there."

The fire poker fell from her hands. She just stood there, trying to breathe, staring at Nicholas's unmoving body, the pool of blood spreading from beneath him. Then her knees buckled, and she went down hard.

Wesley crawled toward her. "Ellie—"

Through a curtain of tangled hair she looked up at him and felt something deep inside break. "I'm sorry … so sorry."

He took her in his arms and pulled her into his lap, against his chest, and started to rock. "I'm here now. I'm here."

Emotion jammed in her throat. She held on tight, didn't think she could ever let go. "He made me," she managed. "Made me say those things."

"Shh." He had one hand on her back, big, strong, soothing, while the other stabbed into her hair. "Don't talk now."

But she had to. Couldn't hold the words in, not when her heart hammered their release. "Love you," she murmured against the hot skin of his throat. "Love you."

"Cristo,"
came a low voice from the doorway, and then Sandro was striding through the swarm of the SWAT team, toward Nicholas's unmoving body.

"Liz'beth!" Ethan charged in next, all tall and disheveled, followed by a wide-eyed Miranda.

"Bella,
I told you to stay outside!"

She shot her fiancé a heated look then joined her brother at Elizabeth's side.

"It was him," she sobbed, looking up to face them both. "Nicholas. He killed Kristina."

Ethan swore softly, dropped to his knees and took his sister's hands. Miranda did the same.

And Wesley, Wesley quietly eased Elizabeth from his lap to her brother's, and left the Carringtons there on the floor, mourning for a sister who'd been taken from them not by icy roads and fate, but by a man they'd once called friend.

* * *

Dark swirls of crimson streaked across the early-evening sky, barely visible through the thickly leaved branches of a huge Chinese maple. Hawk stared anyway, watched a pair of pudgy doves gorging themselves at one of the many bird feeders in Elizabeth's backyard.

Only a few feet away Aaron had been found, gut shot and bleeding, left to die in a cluster of boxwood. He was still in surgery, but the prognosis, thank God, was good.

Nicholas would survive, as well, heal to stand trial, finally be punished for the lives he had destroyed.

"He was going to kill her," he said, turning toward her brother. Dark urges ripped through him, but he worked hard to tame the edges. But for as long as he lived, he knew he'd never forget the sight of Nicholas straddling
Elizabeth
, rubbing a knife against her breasts. His vision had gone black.
And
for the second time in less than a week, her life had flashed before his eyes. "Just like he killed his father."

"And Kristina." Ethan's eyes were rimmed with red, but glittered with the thirst for justice that made him a cutthroat prosecutor. "And he'll pay … for all of it."

Hawk sucked in a jagged breath. God, if they'd been a few minutes later… He'd called the police and her brother the second he caught on to what was happening, had instructed Ethan to call Elizabeth, to drown out the double beep of the security system while he let himself inside.

"Wesley."

He turned to see Peter Carrington striding down the narrow staircase. "She's asking for you."

His heart kicked, hard. He'd not seen her since the frenzied moments when he'd come close to killing Ferreday with his bare hands. He'd surrendered her first to her brother and sister, then to paramedics and the police, then, finally, her father.

He crossed to the ambassador. "How is she?"

"Shaken but okay." His eyes, those unusual green eyes he'd shared with his children, darkened. And then he started to cry. Hawk couldn't believe it. Polished, poised, elegant, unflappable Ambassador Peter Carrington started to cry, not just silent tears, but sobs. He pulled his daughter's bodyguard into his arms and held on tight.

Hawk shot a desperate look at Ethan, who stared at his father like he'd never seen the man before.

"It's okay," Hawk tried to soothe, not having a damn clue what to do. Awkwardly, he thumped his back. "It's all over now."

The ambassador pulled back gruffly and met his gaze. "Because of you, son. Because you followed your heart."

Everything inside Hawk went very still. "I did my job—"

Peter Carrington shook off his explanation. "Liz'beth told me everything, son. She told me everything."

He tried to pull back, because if she'd really told him everything, there was no way he could ever look her father in the eye again. "Listen, sir—"

"That's why I brought you back into her life," the ambassador stunned him by saying. "Because no one else has been able to reach her like you can, touch her."

Hawk felt his mouth drop open, saw Ethan lift a hand to hide laughter. "I—"

"She smiles with you, son, a smile from the heart. And that's why she's still alive right now." He paused, smiled. "Go to her, Wesley. She's waiting."

For a moment he just stood there, reeling. He thought back to that morning only a few days before, when the ambassador had jarred him from a fitful sleep, ordering him to go to Elizabeth. Bring her home. Keep her safe. It almost sounded as though her father had harbored a secret agenda—

No way. No freaking way.

He swallowed hard anyway, looked at the narrow staircase leading up to her bedroom. Her father and brother were watching, but God help him, he took the stairs two at a time. He reached the landing and pushed through her door, forgot to breathe.

She stood beyond the elegant four-poster bed, still trashed from their lovemaking, at the window overlooking her backyard, much like he'd been doing one story below. Very little of the crimson sunset remained. Her hair was damp and combed straight, falling against her shoulders and back. She no longer wore the blood-smeared T-shirt and ratty cutoffs, but a dusty-rose terry cloth bathrobe.

"Elizabeth."

She didn't stiffen the way she usually did when he said her name, just turned slowly to him and slayed him with her eyes. They were huge and dark, not devastated as they'd been earlier, but brimming with hope and promise and, God help him, something dangerously close to love.

"Wesley," she said, and her voice, normally so smooth and honeyed and confident, broke.

And he couldn't do it. He couldn't just stand there and look at her, not when his heart hammered in his chest and every instinct he possessed demanded that he go to her, pull her into his arms, bury his face in her hair, hold her, just hold her.

So he did.

She met him halfway, taking him in her arms as he did the same. She pushed up on her toes and pressed her face to his neck, twined her arms around him and held on tight.

Emotion clobbered him. "Ellie," he breathed, loving the feel of her, soft and warm, the sweet scent, that unique combination of vanilla and something soft. Pear, she'd told him. Pear.

Her mouth moved against his neck, little kisses that electrified his blood.

"Thank you," she said. "Thank you for coming back."

That got him. He pulled back, took her face in his hands. "Do you have any idea," he managed, reminding himself that now was not the time to fall to his knees like an idiot, "any idea at all, how much I love you?"

Moisture flooded her eyes. "I love you, too, Wesley. More than I thought possible."

The words wrapped around his heart and squeezed. He'd never expected them. Not from her, Elizabeth, the woman who could send him to his knees with a simple smile. "I'm the one who should be thanking you," he said.

The light of a single lamp played across her face, even more beautiful without makeup than with. "Me? Why?"

His gut twisted at the thought of what she'd gone through, how much courage she'd shown. "For telling me, Ellie. For finding a way to tell me … without words."

A soft little sound tore from her throat. "You heard?"

"I heard." He slid a hand down her neck, to the black pearls tucked inside her robe and draped against her collar-bone. The ones she'd worn the night before when he'd made love to her, the ones she'd fingered when she told him to leave, that it was too late. The ones she still wore.

"I didn't realize at first," he told her. "I was too blinded by what Nicholas wanted me to see, to hear. But then I stood there at that stupid little iron gate and even though I didn't want to, kept playing the scene over and over in my mind."

Something hadn't been right. He'd replayed every word, every move, every breath, and that's when the truth had almost slaughtered him.

"You were crying," he said, and felt moisture rush to his own eyes. The memory gutted him. Tough, strong, brave
Elizabeth
may have told him it was too late, but she'd been crying when she did so. And he'd never, not once, seen
Elizabeth
cry. "And playing with your pearls."

"Praying you would notice."

"I noticed." God, had he noticed. It had all clicked with hideous clarity, and he'd run to the side of the house, peered in the window and felt his heart stop. "I should never have walked out that door this morning. I should have told you how I felt—"

"He would have found another way."

"And I would have stopped him. But he wouldn't have been able to use us against each other. I was an idiot. I let pride take over, walked away before you could do the same."

The light in her eyes dimmed. "Like I did two years ago."

"
Elizabeth
—"

She lifted a hand to his face. "I wouldn't have cared."

He blinked. "What?"

"At the door you said you kept your upbringing, your past with Nicholas, from me, because you thought it would have changed things between us, led me to push you away."

"I couldn't take that chance." Because, God help him, for all that he'd hassled her about her need for control, he had the same need. For the first time he realized he used bravado, he kept everyone around him off balance, in the same way she used plans. To stay in control.

"You were right," she said quietly. "I was scared. I've never wanted anything as badly as I wanted you, never felt so out of control, so … vulnerable."

"
Elizabeth
—"

"And that's why I walked away two years ago, because I didn't think I could live like that, with my heart in my throat every minute of every day, never in control."

He couldn't help it. He laughed. "Control is highly overrated."

The smile started out slow, tentative, then curved into sheer radiance. "Tell me about it."

Slowly he lowered his mouth to hers. "I'd rather show you."

Epilogue

«
^

"
Y
ou sure about this?"

"Absolutely."

"It's not too late to change your mind."

"I'm not changing my mind."

"You don't have to do this, you know. You don't have to prove anything—"

"I'm not trying to prove anything."

"Once we cross the point of no return—"

Elizabeth
twisted around and pushed up on her toes, lifted her mouth to his. "I know what I'm doing." The point of no return had long since come and gone, had been crossed the moment Wesley had run across the darkened hotel ballroom in
Calgary
and scooped her into his arms, carried her out into the cold rain. The moment she'd seen his eyes, all hot and burning, the wicked gleam that had haunted her for two long years. The moment their mouths had met and she'd rejoiced rather than rejected him.

She hadn't realized it at the time, but the writing had al
ready been on the wall, big, bold, with no regard for lines or propriety.

Thank God.

He slid his arms around her waist, held her close. "Are you scared?"

She pulled back as much as their joined harnesses would allow and drank in the sight of him, all tall and broad and drop-dead
gorgeous in an orange
flight suit. From the windows of the small Cessna, late-morning sunlight glinted off the gold of his whiskers.

"Maybe just a little," she admitted above the rumble of the engines. The plane had stopped climbing five minutes before, was now cruising steadily at close to
3,500
feet. White clouds streaked against a vivid blue backdrop. "But even more, I'm excited."

The butterscotch of his eyes gleamed. "Promise I won't let go."

"Stand by!" the jumpmaster instructed.

Her heart kicked. Adrenaline surged. "I know."