Rapid Fire (29 page)

But why
bother? They already knew that the Mastermind didn’t deserve to live. Not after
what he’d done to Bear Claw.

To Maya.

“I could
kill you,” Thorne said again, aware of the squeal of tires outside as the
others arrived, aware that his window of opportunity was closing. “I’ve killed
before, you know. Nobody would blame me. Not a soul.”

Then he
glanced at Maya, at the woman he loved. She stirred faintly and moaned with the
pain of the bullet buried high in her shoulder. She’d moved at the last moment
and he’d caught more of her than he’d intended. Enough so he worried it had
been too much.

Fear and
regret fisted in his stomach alongside rage. Then her eyelashes fluttered and
her eyes opened, clear and brown. Her lips shaped the words, “Don’t do it.”

He froze,
finger tightened halfway on the trigger, gun muzzle pointed at the man who had
harmed so many innocents. The chief lay on his back, eyes dark and murderous.

Maya
pushed herself off the floor, blood streaming between the fingers she held
clamped to her shoulder. Her eyes were steady on his. “Don’t do it. I love
you.”

I love
you. The words seeped into him, unfurling an unfamiliar warmth within his
chest. She still loved him, even after what he’d done, even after he’d shot her
and pretended not to believe her.

“Will you
still love me if I kill him?” He forced the words between tight lips, aware of
the deadness within his brain, the lack of flashes, of prescience.

He didn’t
know how this was going to play out.

She held
his eyes. “This isn’t for me. This is for you. You’ll hate yourself if you do
it.” She pulled herself to her feet, grimacing with the pain, and stumbled two
steps toward him to lay trembling, bloodstained fingers on his arm. “Don’t do
it. Stay here with me. Stay human.” She rose on her tiptoes to kiss him on the
cheek. “Stay with me.”

And he
broke. Simply broke. His breath expelled with a rush and he nearly dropped to
his knees with the relief, with the love. He kept his weapon trained on Parry,
who seemed to have accepted his capture. “God, yes. Yes, I’ll stay. I’ll stay.
I love you. God, I love you.”

She
smiled, and her heart was in her eyes when she said, “Good, at least we agree
on that much.”

She
leaned forward and kissed him as the others came running in, Tucker first,
followed by Cassie and Alissa, then what seemed like the whole damn Bear Claw
City Police Department.

They
looked shocked to find the Henkes family stirring to fitful consciousness,
stunned to find their chief battered and being held at gunpoint.

And not
at all surprised to find Maya and Thorne in each other’s arms.

Epilogue

The
wedding was held in the Bear Claw Creek State Park, late in the summer when the
trees and cactuses bloomed with vivid greens and vibrant reds, bold clashes of
color that seemed at odds with the stark cut stone of the canyon walls and the
wild riot of the rain-swollen creek below. Cassie and Maya wore cactus
flower–red and Alissa wore white, as befitted the bride. Moments away from the
start of the procession, the wedding party was gathered in a loose knot beyond
the flower-decorated archway that led to the seated guests and the final walk
down the petal-strewn aisle.

Two members
of the wedding party stood aside, enjoying each other.

“It’s
almost time.” Maya brushed a hand down her dress and smiled up at the handsome
man standing beside her. “You ready?”

Thorne
grinned, a flash of square white teeth that sent a sharp spear of lust through
Maya’s midsection. They’d been together constantly for the past months, as
Thorne had stepped in to help rebuild the Bear Claw PD in the wake of the
chief’s arrest and subsequent suicide. It had been hard, messy work, and the
pieces weren’t all in place yet, but they were making progress.

Things
were coming together. And Thorne had managed to overcome his aversion to dating
a coworker. It was either that or one of them would’ve had to move, because
they damn sure weren’t giving up each other.

“I’m
totally, utterly ready,” Thorne said, his eyes intent on hers, heating when he
glanced down at the dress, and the modest glimpse of breast that showed at the
neck.

Maya
grinned and folded her hands in front of her, using her upper arms to plump her
small breasts together and deepen what cleavage she had. “You’re always ready
for that. I was talking about the wedding.”

“Me,
too.” But he lost his grin when he went down on one knee in front of her,
crushing the first of the petals where they spread out from Alissa and Tucker’s
marital aisle.

As Maya’s
heart pounded in her chest, threatening to burst through her skin, he pulled a
rusty orange leather box with gold embossing out of his tux jacket pocket.

She
touched her hand to her throat. “Thorne!”

“It’s
okay.” He nodded toward the rest of the wedding party, where Alissa and Cassie
held hands with Tucker and Seth Varitek, the men they had met and come to love
during the course of the chief’s mad scheme. Engagement bands sparkled on both
the women’s fingers, evidence of the futures they’d both found with their men.
“I asked them and they said it was okay if I stole a bit of their thunder.” He
gestured at the creek and the blue, blue sky, and at the fallen bit of the
canyon where Alissa had found the first of the kidnapped girls, nearly losing
her life in the process, and losing her heart instead. “It seemed appropriate
somehow, seeing as this was where it all started.”

He waved
the others forward before he popped the small snap on the leather box and opened
the two-sided top to reveal a gleaming platinum band set with three nearly
equal-sized diamonds that sparkled like nothing she’d ever seen.

“Thorne!”
she said again, shock and giddy happiness robbing her of her vocabulary.

“Maya,”
he said gravely, but humor flashed in his eyes. “Will you marry me?”

His words
echoed back through time but found no comparison to her previous life, to her
previous mistakes. She was new now, and whole, and she loved him with all her
heart.

She
grinned. “Don’t you already know the answer?”

“Not this
time.” A shadow passed across his face. She knew that while he was relieved
that the flashes—whatever they had truly been—had left him alone since that
scene at the Henkes mansion, sometimes, like during a recent spate of break-ins,
he missed the instinct. Prescience. Whatever he wanted to call it. He shook his
head. “Nope, I can’t foretell this one.”

“Well, I
can,” she said, feeling a smile touch her lips, a lightness touch her heart.
“Yes. The answer is yes, I’ll marry you.”

And then
there was no need to say more, because his lips were on hers, and his fingers
were on hers, slipping the ring into place as he kissed her and kissed her and
the sun gleamed down on them both, warming everything it touched.

A cheer
broke out, led by Alissa and Cassie, the two best friends Maya could ever have
asked for, and picked up by the rest of the wedding guests, who’d risen from
their chairs at the whispered hint that something big was happening.

Soon
every member of the Bear Claw PD was on his or her feet, whistling and
stomping, and carrying that excitement over when the music came up and it was
time for the three couples to march down the aisle, one pair to be married, two
pairs to anticipate their own marriages.

And all
three couples to look forward to their lives fighting crime in Bear Claw,
Colorado.

Together.