Unmasking Kelsey (19 page)

“The weapons due to be shipped are stored in
this building,” Thorn explained, leading the way along an aisle between tall stacks of wooden crates.

Kelsey and Zach exchanged a glance, both understanding the significance of that information. No wonder Thorn was undisturbed by their entrance! In this maze of crates he could hide half the building and they’d never miss the space. Unless, that is, his visitors came armed with a little extra information—such as the floor plan drawn by Teddy and Blaine Mallory

Both men set themselves to looking as keenly as possible, searching for the several small rooms secreted away on the north side of the building. And both of them held on tight to their patience as Thorn guided them through the maze.

Jo wiped the ketchup off her arm with a grimace, watching as her sister tugged the guard’s limp legs into the room and pushed the door partially closed. “I’ve never seen you hit anybody before,” she noted with interest.

A little pale but determined, Elizabeth tossed Jo’s shoe back to her and then bent to remove the guard’s holster. Gritting her teeth, she unbuckled his belt. “I never had to. The belt will do for his ankles; find something to tie his arms and gag him, will you, please?”

“How about his shirt? And he probably has a handkerchief.”

“Fine. And hurry. I don’t think we have much time.”

Jo, fascinated by this new side of her sister, knelt and began working the guard out of his shirt. The first part of Elizabeth’s plan had gone like clockwork, with the guard responding immediately to Beth’s cry that her sister was hurt. A child’s trick, of course, but Beth’s distress had sounded damned real, and the guard had heard that.

And, Jo reflected, her usually sweet and calm sister had laid that guard out as pretty as you please with a shoe. Beth! And now she was busily binding his ankles as if she’d done things like this all her life.

Jo shook her head, but said, “We could get out of here now, probably.”

“Not with Max poised over that missile. If you can distract him long enough for me to get close, I can push him away and hold him off with this gun. Then Kelsey and Derek will only have Thorn to worry about.”

Jo sighed. “Him and about thirty soldiers. They’re all over the compound, Beth!”

“Thorn can call them off.”

“Will he?”

“He will if Kelsey tells him to.”

“You have a lot of faith in that man of yours.”

Hers
. Elizabeth worked to help Jo finish binding the guard’s wrists behind his back, her thoughts tangled. He wasn’t hers, not really. Maybe not ever. She understood a little better now, what he was.

Despite fear and anxiety, despite the deadly danger posed by Thorn and that missile in the other room, she felt the attraction of danger. Her mind had never worked so clearly as when she had planned this series of moves, and there had
been a sense of exhilaration in disabling this professional soldier by using her wits and a well-placed shoe.

And, after fifteen years … how could Kelsey give this up? Oh, she could imagine the drawbacks to his brand of dragon slaying—she had heard the pain in Kelsey’s voice when he had talked of his father, and knew there had been others lost over the years. And that kind of pain could weigh down even a strong man.

Maybe especially a strong man.

And she thought she could see him now, clearly. She realized, finally, that he was exactly what he appeared to be. A dozen men, maybe a hundred men. He was a part of every role he played, every face he briefly wore, a gifted and instinctive actor who had chosen a deadly stage for his roles.

And no applauding members of the academy offered him a little gold statuette, no grateful studio head offered million dollar contracts to acknowledge his wonderful talent. His face would go unrecognized, his name unknown. Kelsey, a man who could have been anything or anyone he
wanted, had simply picked up a sword and gone about the dangerous business of slaying dragons.

“I didn’t fit in that world anymore.”

Kelsey. Her beloved Kelsey, who honestly didn’t know he could fit into any world he chose.

And that was it, really. The bottom line. The role didn’t matter—only the performance that was as instinctive to him as breathing. Kelsey would always relish the roles, enjoying each for its own sake … because, to him, they
weren’t
roles.

They were pieces of himself.

If he chose to fit himself into her world, he would adapt instantly like the chameleon that could have been his namesake. She could see him so clearly in her mind as he went about learning peaches—and sisters. Small town life. The responsibilities of a settled home. Maybe a family.

The question was … would Kelsey come to terms with himself enough to realize that he
could
fit?

“Beth?”

Jo’s voice brought her back to the job at hand,
and she shook off the question, knowing that only time and Kelsey could answer it. “Ready?”

Sighing, Jo began removing her clothes. “I can keep on my underwear, can’t I?”

“Well, of course. I would never ask my own sister to parade around stark naked in front of a strange maniac!”

“Gee, thanks.”

Elizabeth hefted the unfamiliar weight of the gun, studying it uneasily. That was the safety, wasn’t it? And this—you pulled this back to—to chamber a round … or did you? Throwing the matter into the lap of the gods, she took a firm grip on the gun and trusted to luck.

“I’m ready,” Jo said.

They left their former guard trussed up neatly, and moved between the wall of crates and the partition which had been erected to shape several small rooms.

“The door isn’t locked?” Elizabeth whispered.

“No, never. I go in first, right?”

“Yes. Try to turn him so he faces away from
the door—and get him away from the missile if you can.”

Jo gave her a mock-haughty look, following her sister’s lead in being very calm about all this insanity. “If I can? Hey, sis, Mata Hari’s got nothing on me.”

“I hope not,” Elizabeth said. “She got shot.”

“Great,” Jo muttered. It
was
insanity, after all.

Elizabeth turned her head slightly, hearing the rumble of male voices. “Hurry,” she urged in a whisper.

Jo took a deep breath, and vanished through the doorway.

Kelsey knew damned well that Thorn was leading them in a carefully thought out, very confusing path through the maze. The trouble was, neither he nor Zach could very well protest until they were sure they knew exactly where they were. Mallory had admitted that Thorn could have shifted the moveable partitions to change the rooms around. He had before.

And then, following along behind Thorn, Kelsey felt Zach touch his arm and followed the other’s gaze to see, beyond a tall stack of crates, a faint glimmer of light.

The skylight.

But before they could act, they all three saw a slender figure leaning casually against the crates just ahead. A beautiful blond woman who smiled gently as Thorn stopped dead in the aisle.

“Hello, Major,” she said.

And it wasn’t very hard, after all, to finish the job. While Thorn was still paralyzed, Kelsey coolly disarmed him and Zach produced a pair of handcuffs that were put quickly in place.

“Federal and military agents, Major Thorn,” Kelsey told him. “You’re under arrest.”

Zach looked quickly at Elizabeth. “The missile?”

“This way.” She led them to the virtually hidden room, and pushed open the door.

And Kelsey knew that never, to his dying day, would he forget the scene presented to him.

A very lovely blond woman stood with a businesslike
automatic in one small hand, pointing it steadily at a man who was positioned just a few steps away from a missile.

The man looked less unhappy than he might have under the circumstances, possibly because the lovely lady was naked except for panties and a bra.

Kelsey heard a chuckle from Zach and watched while he moved toward the missile and pulled a small bag of tools from inside his shirt with which to defang a particularly ugly dog of war. And Kelsey was saved from having to remark on the situation when Derek appeared suddenly beside him and firmly took a subdued Thorn’s arm.

“Hi,” he said casually.

Kelsey stared at him blankly. “How did you get in here?”

“Hell, we own the joint.” Derek grinned. “Josh pulled rank, and by the time he explained to the soldiers that their CO was cozying up to a nuclear missile, they were ready to strap him to it and bury them both.” He eyed Jo with interest as she came to the door. “Hello.”

She smiled at him. “I have clothes around here somewhere.”

“Don’t find them on my account,” he begged politely.

Jo looked at Elizabeth. “Which one is yours?”

“This one,” Kelsey said in a low, raspy voice while he reached for Elizabeth’s hand.

Jo eyed him. “Yes, of course you are.”

“Why don’t you get dressed, Jo?” Elizabeth asked, a bit wary of Kelsey’s impassive expression.

“Yes, why don’t I?” She glared at Thorn, then looked at Derek. “Would you please remove this creature?”

“Yes, ma’am.” Derek went in the room quickly to remove Max so that Zach could concentrate on his defanging, then hustled the major and Max away.

Jo strolled back to her former jail to retrieve her clothes, and her voice sang out a moment later. “There’s another one in here, dammit!”

“Tied up,” Elizabeth murmured.

Kelsey took a deep breath. “You do realize you
could have been killed?” he asked in the calm tone of a man who wanted to get the facts straight.

She nodded. “It occurred to me.”

“Then why in hell did you come here?” Kelsey’s voice was strained now, thickened. “You knew we were about to move.”

“Yes.” She looked up at him gravely, her lovely eyes very direct. “I knew. But I didn’t know what it felt like to slay a dragon. And I needed to know that, Kelsey.”

He looked at her for a moment, then pulled her abruptly into his arms and hugged her. “Dammit,” he muttered.

Elizabeth burrowed closer, holding on to what she could of him.

“A
DEBRIEFING
.” K
ELSEY
stood on the bottom step, looking at Elizabeth with restless eyes. “Josh and his crew can get away with just vanishing, but Derek and I have to report in. A few days.”

“I understand.” She glanced past him, watching a low-slung sports car turn onto the main road from her driveway. “Derek’s leaving now?”

Kelsey smiled. “Riding off into the sunset. Like the Lone Ranger.”

Elizabeth kept her arms crossed, looking relaxed. The sun was indeed going down. The
military men—those who had helped to evacuate Pinnacle—were now in charge of Meditron, with Blaine and Jo remaining there to answer official questions. The missile had been disarmed. Josh Long and his “crew” had departed quietly. The newspapers had yet to hear of the story and, with luck, would find it uninteresting now that the shouting was over.

“Will you drive all night?” she asked steadily.

He shook his head. “Josh pulled a few more strings. I’m meeting Derek in Charleston; there’s a military transport waiting for us.”

She nodded. “How do I thank you, Kelsey?”

“For what? In the end, I didn’t do very much.”

“It all happened because of you,” she told him quietly. “I never would have found the courage to—to
do
something if it hadn’t been for you.”

“Elizabeth—”

She lifted a hand to stop him. “You have to be debriefed, remember? We can talk—later.”

“I’ll be back,” he said.

Elizabeth smiled. “I’ll be here.”

She watched him move slowly to his car and get
in. Watched him drive out to the main road and turn toward Charleston. When the sun was gone and the breeze turned chilly, she went inside the house.

The girls would be home soon, she realized. The soldiers hadn’t wanted to release any of the citizens—including the students—until they were sure the threat was gone. But now they knew the town was out of danger. They would release the people, and the girls would be home soon. Elizabeth went into the kitchen, turned on lights, and began cooking.

When Ami and Meg burst through the front door about an hour later, Elizabeth turned to greet them with a smile.

“Beth!” Ami was flushed and excited. “Soldiers came to school and made us leave. They made the whole town leave!”

“Somebody said there was a bomb,” Meg explained. “And we had to wait for
hours
near Charleston in that big park with all the shelters.”

“Jo’s coming home,” Elizabeth said.

Both Ami and Meg went still, their eyes widening.

“From her vacation? Sure,” Meg said dismissively.

But Ami’s eyes were very bright. “Kelsey did it, didn’t he?”

Elizabeth smoothed the fine, pale hair of her youngest sister, and smiled. “Yes. Kelsey did it.”

In the cool early morning mist of a spring day, Ami fed the horses and then headed back to the house. She was a little troubled because Kelsey had been gone for over a week now, and Beth had been very quiet. Even Meg, generally not one to notice other people’s feelings, had said more than once that “that Kelsey” would be turning up here soon.

But Beth was very quiet.

Ami sighed, then tilted her head as she heard a faint sound from the front of the house. Curious, she walked around from the back, and when she stopped, she could feel her smile growing.

“Hello, Kelsey.”

He looked up from his work, smiling in return. “Good morning, little fawn. You’re up bright and early.”

“The horses,” she explained, watching solemnly as he continued working.

“Demanding beasts,” he agreed gravely.

“Yes. You’ve been here awhile.”

“It takes time to do this right,” he said with a note of apology in his voice.

“I see it does. How long do you want me to wait before I send Beth out?”

He looked up to wink at her. “Give me another half hour, all right?”

“Got it.” Ami turned away, then hesitated and looked back at him. “Kelsey?”

He looked up questioningly.

“I’m glad you came back.”