Make Mine a Marine (23 page)

He grabbed BJ's hand and ran. He hurdled over the rubble and through the fire door, dragging her behind him. Explosions rocked the stairwell as he dashed down two, then three steps at a time. When BJ stumbled, he pulled her to his side and half-carried her so their pace never slackened.

Plaster and bits of metal fell on top of them as the explosions built upon themselves, growing closer and closer together as one blast triggered another.

Brodie and BJ hit the ground floor at a dead run, losing the race with billowing smoke and lapping flames. Steel and concrete collapsed around them as they ran through the last door into the cooler air of the night outside.

They ran until they hit the parking lot and passed the circle of fire engines and ambulances lining the curb. Fire fighters and paramedics hurried around them, shouting commands, helping dazed employees who had escaped the burning complex.

A crowd gathered around them, but Brodie wasn't aware of a single person besides BJ. She fell against him, winded from their run, sucking in big gulps of air. Alive. Blessedly, beautifully alive.

A paramedic stopped and examined BJ, leaving her with a mask and a small tank of oxygen. Brodie sat on the asphalt and held her in his lap while she breathed the reviving air, rocking her and thanking God that she was safe.

After several minutes, she removed the mask. “Damon?” she wheezed, “Do you think?”

He wrapped her more tightly in his arms. “He's gone. I can feel it.”

Her fingers clutched at his shirt. “But he's immortal.”

“His prophecy came true. Damon died by his own hand. In a machine, in a complex, that he designed and built. He got caught in his own death chamber.”

“I helped build it.”

He loosened his hold at the remorse in her words, and tipped her chin up. “You never shared his evil intent.”

He followed her gaze to the dying buildings. “It's strange. I don't feel any grief. A little guilt, maybe. But I don't miss him.”

Brodie thought of some of the deaths he had been responsible for. Even in the heat of battle, even to save another, it always hurt to know he had taken a life. “You may once the shock has worn off. You did love him. Don't feel guilty about that.”

“It does hurt to lose the man I thought he was.”

“Which brings up another point.”

She turned in his lap. “What's that?”

“I lost you. I watched you die.” Brodie shook with the admission. “How did you come back to me?”

BJ smiled. Brodie wished he could smile in return. Despite dusty clothes, a soot-smudged face, and wet, debris-caked hair, BJ looked absolutely lovely with that smile.

“When I activated the computer, I pulled up a subroutine to revive me in the chamber after my death. It was a failsafe I had programmed into the system when I still worked for Damon. I found the execution program when I was shutting down the reactor and it gave me the idea.”

BJ paused a moment to catch a healthy breath. In her heart she thanked God for those extra IQ points, and for the insight to remain true to her values in spite of the pressure from Damon all those years ago. She reached up and touched the man who had helped her find the courage to believe in herself again.

“I hoped I could cheat death. To be clinically dead long enough for Damon to release you. The curse didn't say I had to stay dead, did it?”

Brodie's grim face provided no answer and her feelings of triumph diminished. She'd ridden a euphoria of mind over magic. But were they really free? “My second chance at life subroutine was never tested. I'm glad it worked.”

“Me, too.” Brodie gathered her in his arms and kissed her. When he finally lifted his head, her eyes were ablaze with passion, her lips swollen and branded by his kisses. “I've never suffered the way I did when I thought you were dead.”

“I'm sorry. But I had to try. I couldn't bear to see you hurt anymore.”

With a virile power that he attributed solely to her, Brodie rolled to his feet with BJ in his arms. He carried her across the lot to his SUV.

He set her inside the driver's door and climbed in next to her. He tucked her to his side and drove them home.

After securing the front door, he carried her straight to the bathroom. He set her down and gently stripped off her clothes. His fell into a pile with hers.

Brodie took her by the hand and led her into the shower, adjusting the water until it sluiced warmly over their bodies. He washed her gently with his hands, shampooing the grit from her hair, rinsing the grunge and memories of this fateful night from her skin.

When he had finished, she took the soap and began to wash him. With gentle, arousing tenderness, she ran her hands along his flanks, over his shoulders, down his arms. He hunkered down so she could wash his hair.

She pressed her palms against his temples and massaged her fingers across his scalp. He closed his eyes to receive her tender comfort. While his eyes were closed, she moved nearer. She pressed her warm, womanly body against him, fitting soft curves against his hard contours. His arms went around her and held her close. She kissed the new scar over his brow, the immovable corner of his mouth. As he straightened, her lips traced a path down his neck, across his burned shoulder, over the marks on his chest.

Her hands slid with the water down over his buttocks. She massaged the muscles there, flattening her breasts against his stomach with bewitching innocence. Her gentle touches calmed him, renewed him. She filled him with strength and need.

Brodie tipped her head back and swept his tongue into her mouth, drinking in the warm welcome there. She accepted his fierce need and matched it with her own. She clung to his waist, stretching up on tiptoe to accommodate him more fully, maddening him with the feel of her smooth, slick skin rubbing against his thighs and stomach.

His need for this woman overwhelmed him.

In her presence, he felt reverent and humble, yet fiery and out of control all at the same time.

“Brodie.” She whispered his name and stroked his back. Her honey-husky voice called to the need inside him.

“Sweetheart.” He gave her his pledge of love in that single word. Then he shut off the water and carried her into her bedroom.

He was only vaguely aware of things flying across the room as he tossed back the top covers and laid her on the crisp white sheets. She wound her arms around his neck and he propped himself on top of her. She accepted him, wanted him.

She seemed small and fragile beneath him, but her spirit was strong, her need as a powerful as his own. Brodie succumbed helplessly to the pressure of her fingers and settled himself over her, inside her.

BJ looked up at him, her eyes wide and loving. Brodie took her mouth and savored her sweet, sassy kiss. He slid his hands down her damp sides to the swell of her hips. Then he reached beneath her and pulled her fully around him. She gasped and arched into him.

Together, with love and passion and a desperate, final promise, they soared to that spot where lovers become one and the love that consumes them becomes a thing greater than themselves.

In the aftermath of the most beautiful night of her life, BJ woke up alone. She knew before her eyes adjusted to the late morning light that she would spend the rest of her life waking up alone.

A fluid, languid feeling of utter contentment flowed through her, the glowing physical response to Brodie's loving. But it contrasted sharply with the twisting ache in her chest, the ache of abandonment and heartbreak.

They had come together three times that night, each time with a passion more desperate, more final than the last. She had lost him. She loved him with all her heart, and she believed in her soul that he loved her. But she had lost him all the same.

She knew before she rolled over and found the regal purple iris placed on the indentation of Brodie's pillow. She knew before she opened the envelope with her initials scrawled on the front. Brodie had left her.

And this time, he wasn't coming back.

She sat up in bed, pulling her knees up to her chest and tucking the covers around her naked body. She sniffed the fragrant flower, loving the unique choice better than a traditional rose. She kept it in her hand while she opened and read his note.

My darling BJ-

I love you more than I ever thought possible. You've given me the blessed gift of your healing love and trust. You've humbled me with your generous loving, and awakened my soul with your life-affirming smile. Know that I do what I feel I must with a heavy heart.

If you are alive, then I cannot be mortal. I do not trust that destroying the ring or killing Damon has freed me. The scars still cover my body as proof of my sentence. As long as the curse plagues me, I am a threat to you.

I don't think I could bear to watch you die again for my sake. I love you too much to allow anything to happen to you because of me.

Live a long, happy, healthy life.

Forever yours,

Brodie.

A teardrop fell and smudged the corner of his name. BJ wiped it dry with the pad of her thumb, not wanting to spoil her last communication from Brodie.

She lay back on the pillow, clasping the note and the flower to her bosom and letting the tears stream unheeded down her cheeks. She would do nothing to track him down. Nothing to convince him to come back to her. For Brodie's sake, she would let him go. Even though she was dying a second time, she would accept the loving farewell of her noble, honorable knight.

Chapter Fifteen

Several weeks later

BJ's pain had transformed itself into a numb emptiness. Before Brodie freed her, she had functioned for months without the full use of her mind. Now she moved through her days in a similar fashion, functioning without the full use of her heart.

Jas and Emma had listened to the details of her fantastic adventure, accepting her explanations of immortality, evil magic, and the vengeful cost of cheating death. Their support was unflinching, their loving friendship unconditional. But it wasn't enough to ease the hurt.

She slept badly, longing for Brodie's strong, secure presence to keep the loneliness at bay.

She didn't eat particularly well, sustaining herself mostly on homemade bread and milkshakes, a fatty, carb-rich diet that made her clothes feel snug and her moods swing from bad to blah. Emma fretted over her like a mother with a sick child, making her take naps at the office, often inviting her home to eat a well-balanced meal.

BJ thrived on her work. With meticulous perseverance, she tracked every program she had written, consciously or not, from scratch to insure there were no remnants of Damon's evil, invasive plan.

Then she poured herself into writing new programs. Games mostly. Anything positive, uplifting, anything that might lift her out of the endless sorrow.

Today was no different. She had opened the windows to let in the cool, biting autumn breeze. Even with the heat turned down, she found it warm in her jeans and oversized sweater. Duke was curled on the sofa, burrowed in a pile of heart-shaped pillows. BJ munched on a soda cracker while she clicked the mouse and scrolled through her latest game, checking for anomalies.

She heard a knock on her open door and looked up, summoning a slight smile when Emma greeted her.

“How are you feeling this morning?”

“About the same, I guess.” BJ saved the game and shut off the computer, joining Emma on the sofa. She scooped Duke into her arms and sat. “I can't seem to shake this flu.”

Emma opened the brown bag in her lap and pulled out a plastic bottle. “Here's the lemon- lime soda you asked for. But honestly, I don't think it will settle your stomach.”

Emma hesitated. BJ grimaced at her motherly frown. “What else do you have in that sack? A doctor's prescription?”

Emma reached inside and pulled out a narrow white box with a drugstore label on it. She handed it to BJ. “It's a pregnancy test. You have the same symptoms I had with Kerry. You're tired all the time. Your stomach's on edge. You're eating a strange diet.”

An aching hurt awakened inside BJ. She opened her mouth, then clenched her jaw, not sure how to explain. “Em, I can't be pregnant.”

“Are you sure?”

BJ closed her eyes and remembered that last night with Brodie, a beautiful, healing bonding of souls. It should have been a fresh beginning for them. Instead, it became a poignant farewell.

“Brodie is the only man I've ever been with and he can't father children. Because he's immortal, he can't get me, a mortal, pregnant. Because he's immortal, I'll never see him again.”

A tide of nausea shifted in BJ's stomach and she reached for the soda. Emma pushed the box into her hands instead.

“Take the test.”

Brodie tossed another log in the stove, trying to chase away the chill that would never leave him. He scratched at his beard, feeling more and more like the hermit of the hills with each endless day that passed. He crossed to the window of his cabin, nestled on a remote peak in the ancient Ozark Mountains.

For years he had treasured the solitude here. Normally, he appreciated the scenery. This morning, fog shrouded the golds, reds, and oranges of the hillsides, insulating him further from the outside world. Today, the isolation aggravated his loneliness instead of giving him peace.

In the distance he heard the crunch of gravel. A tourist must have gotten lost and missed the sign that labeled his long driveway a private road. Nobody came this far off the main highway unless they couldn't read a map or had an ulterior purpose. Nobody had been here in months, not since Kel Murphy had dropped in to tell him Jonathan Ramsey's widow needed help. If only Brodie had known how much keeping a promise would cost him.

With defensive instinct, he reached behind him for his dagger, grasping nothing but the back loop of his jeans. Of course, it was gone. Everything that had held meaning in his life was gone.

As the vehicle drew closer, Brodie reluctantly decided to take action. Better to face the enemy than to let him surprise you. If it was something as harmless as a lost tourist, he'd give him directions and quickly send him on his way. If not, it didn't hurt to be prepared.

He slipped out the back so he could see the driver first, and approach him from the hidden vantage point of the woods. Brodie loped around the perimeter, moving silently through the trees. When he saw the truck's license plate, he skidded to a halt.

WIZ-KID.

Eight hundred years of survival training fell by the wayside. He ran into the clearing, his boots crackling in the dead leaves.

The driver, now on his porch, turned at the noise.

He should retreat. He should march back into the woods and lose himself in their protective shadows. But his feet couldn't seem to hear the message from his head. Instead, they responded to the instinctive joy of seeing BJ again.

In a few strides, he reached her. He lifted her onto her toes and gathered her in his arms, covering her mouth with his. He drank deeply, needfully, a condemned prisoner clinging to his last taste of freedom.

Moments later he came to his senses and set her abruptly away from him. He stayed on the ground and left her on the porch, putting her beyond his reach.

“You shouldn't be here.” His voice sounded thick and inhuman.

At eye level, he simply stared at her, unsure if she was real or a vivid hallucination from his feverish dreams.

Fatigue lined her eyes, but flecks of blue light sparkled in the green depths. Her curves looked fuller, richer than he remembered. Maybe because he so desperately missed the feel of her in his arms. A mischievous pout curved her lips, tempting him to kiss her again into revealing whatever secret amused her so. A navy sweater of soft cotton cable draped over her high breasts, which were pushed forward because she hid something in her hands behind her back.

“What is it? What's wrong?”

“Nothing. That is, if you still love me.”

Didn't she know? “I'll never stop.”

She pulled her hands from behind her back and held up a little plastic stick tipped in blue. “Welcome to the land of mortals, big guy.”

BJ tried to convey all the love and joy in her heart. But Brodie just stared at her, uncomprehending. After the fiery yearning of his welcome, she thought everything would be all right, that this would be easy. But Brodie didn't respond. He stayed too far away from her. He acted as if he hadn't even heard her.

“I know they didn't have these in the thirteenth century. It's a pregnancy test. Blue means it's positive.” His brows moved together, narrowing his eyes. She kept trying. “I've been to a doctor. We're going to have a baby.”

Pain sheared across his features. He shook his head. “My God, it's only been two months. I expected you to find someone else, but…”

An eternity had passed as far as she was concerned. BJ closed the unnecessary distance between them, cupping her hand under his bearded jaw. “There is no one else. There never will be. This baby is yours.”

Something cracked and melted in his icy gaze. “Sweetheart, maybe you want to believe it, and I'd love for the miracle to be true, but you're alive. It can't happen.”

BJ pulled her hand away and paced the length of the wooden porch, willing patience to replace her exasperation. He just didn't understand. She had to make him believe.

“I died in that chamber, Brodie.” She stopped in front of him once more, looking him straight in the eye. “You accept that I was dead, right?”

“I don't know. Your sacrifice haunts me day and night.”

“Damon accepted my death. He freed you from the curse.”

“We don't know that. I won't risk endangering you again.”

Eight hundred years of doubt was a lot to overcome. This called for drastic measures. “Sit down, big guy.”

He surprised her by complying with her request. How could she ever feel intimidated by her gentle giant when he always put his needs second to hers? Her hopes for convincing him of the truth went up a little. She felt his hungry gaze on her as she crossed to the cab of her truck. Good. She needed his undivided attention in order to make this work. BJ opened the door and released her secret weapon.

“Get him, boy.”

Duke jumped down from the seat and bolted toward Brodie.

“Ah, Beej, no.”

Once he realized her intention, he tried to get up, but Duke was too quick. The dog jumped into his lap, propped his front paws on Brodie's shoulders and licked at the skin exposed between Brodie's beard and his ear.

BJ crossed her arms and watched, letting Duke do his work. “Do you believe me now?”

“BJ.”

She worked her jaw muscles to contain her smile. Despite the disparity of sizes, Duke was getting the better of Brodie. He put up one big hand to fend off Duke's marauding tongue, then stood, dropping the dog onto the porch and towering over BJ, trying to look put out.

“It doesn't prove anything except that your guard poodle is annoying.”

BJ tilted her face up to meet his gaze. “Two months ago he'd have tried to take your nose off. He recognized you and Damon were different. Damon made me try to kill him so Duke couldn't convince me of the truth.”

“Your dog deciding he likes me isn't proof that anything has changed.”

His fists rode to his hips, straining his flannel shirt across a considerable expanse of chest. He might try to look tough, but BJ saw the chink in his armor, the slight possibility of belief that Duke had planted there.

She grabbed his hands and unfolded them palm upward. They were double the size of hers, calloused at the tips and palms, but they were undamaged. She lifted them closer to his face. “Where are the scars, Brodie?”

“The burns weren't severe enough to leave a permanent mark.”

She tugged at his peppered, coffee-brown beard. “When was the last time you shaved this thing? It couldn't grow so thick and full if you still had the scars on your face.”

He pulled her hand away. “There's only one mirror in the house, and I hide it in a drawer so I don't scare myself.”

BJ nearly burst with frustration over his obstinacy. “Don't you want to believe? The curse is broken. You're mortal now. We can be together.”

“Don't you think I want that?”

“Maybe not badly enough.”

A shadow passed over his face and BJ knew she had hurt him again. Instead of apologizing, she made one last attempt to get him to believe what she felt in her heart.

She grabbed a handful of his shirt and yanked the flannel up out of the waistband of his jeans. She batted his hands away when he tried to stop her. “No. You have to see.”

He held his arms out to his sides in surrender, looking down on her as though he thought she had reverted to madness once more. BJ pulled his thermal shirt out next, loosening it enough to push it up his stomach and expose his chest for them both to see.

Tenderly, lovingly, knowing he watched her, BJ pressed her hand over his heart. “It's gone. Damon's mark. All the scars. They're gone.”

His warm skin cooled at the brush of autumn air. But beneath her palm, she felt the beating of his heart thudding more rapidly with each breath he took. He pulled her hand away and looked down, seeing his true self for the first time.

BJ stretched upward, touching her lips to the healed skin, awestruck by the masculine beauty that encased the noble man.

She tipped her face up to his. “I died, and the curse was lifted. You made beautiful, glorious love to me three times that night. I'm due in late May. I hope that sometime before then you'll marry me and give our child the father that I never had. One who's there. One who loves with his whole heart and soul.”

Her voice caught as she thought of Jake and the love fate had cheated her of as a child. “And if he's too smart or too strong or perfectly average, you'll be a father who lets him know he's special in your eyes.”

“Sweetheart, I
…” Brodie's rough thumb gently brushed a tear from her cheek. “If I remember rightly, I'm an ugly mug even without all the scars.”

BJ laughed, shutting off her tears with a grateful smile. She clutched at the soft collar of his shirt, wanting to be closer. “Yeah. But you're my ugly mug.”

His hands encircled her waist and drew her up against him. “I'm old-fashioned, to say the least. I've got a lousy temper and I'm overprotective.”

BJ grinned. “I keep weird hours. I have childish hobbies. I'll always be a smart-mouthed brainiac.”

“Yeah, but you'd be my smart-mouthed brainiac.”

BJ's responding laugh faded in dumbstruck wonder. Before her eyes, a marvelous transformation was taking place. The centuries' old grooves beside Brodie's eyes softened, and for the first time in several lifetimes, Brodie smiled.