Hard Landing (35 page)

She couldn't even begin to process that there'd been another threat to his life. "You looked so terrible when you came into the ER. I've never felt so helpless in my life."

"It's okay." He squeezed her hands. "I'm not that easy to kill." Lifting her fingers to his lips, he erased the awful memories by kissing her knuckles tenderly and then her palms. "Besides, I would never die on you like that."

The words sounded so much like a promise, but no one knew ahead of time when they would die. Life, so fleeting, so precious, could be snuffed out in an instant.

A car beeped in the parking lot, and he seemed to recollect himself. "Listen, we don't have much time." He reached behind his back, pulled out a pistol and laid it casually on her bedside table. Then he reached for her again. "I'm sure you've realized by now that the Scarpas consider you Max's weak link. They'd like to stop you from exposing him and, by association, them."

"You mean, they are going to kill me," she interpreted, with a brittle nod.

"Don't say that," he ordered gently. "No one is going to kill you, Becca. I won't let it happen. I'll be watching, protecting you every minute of every hour until you're safely gone. You may not see me, but I'll be there."

The thought of not seeing him before she left, and certainly not after, had her pulling his head down for a kiss. At the first touch of their lips, heat ignited. Their tongues twined in a sultry dance. Desire that demanded nothing short of complete surcease exploded between them.

Rebecca whimpered. Bronco responded by grasping the hem of her nightie and drawing it in one smooth motion over her head.

She drew his mouth down to her breasts, rising on tiptoe to guide a taut nipple between his parted lips. Sinking her fingers into his hair, she realized he had cut it shorter. Her head fell back as he lapped first one peak, then the other, into stiffness.

"Make love to me," she begged, heedless of the special agents who were out there somewhere.

He turned her toward the inflatable mattress and lowered her across it, all the while lavishing her with his lips and tongue.

She reached for the buttons of his jacket, undoing them with hands shaky with desire. Sliding them inside his jacket, she encountered yet another weapon, holstered under his left arm. Afraid to touch it, she slid her fingers lower to his fly, where she worked with single-minded purpose to free him. At last, he filled her hands with his tumescence, straining against her grasp as she lovingly cradled him.

"God, Becca," he groaned, pausing to enjoy her sensual caress.

Their breaths rasped in the quiet room. With a rumble in his throat that was half regret for his necessary haste, half eagerness to sink into her sweet warmth, he hauled off her panties, wedged his thighs between hers and sank into her snug slickness.

Tears of joy and repletion streamed from Rebecca's eyes as they surged together, mouths locked, tongues seeking. Pleasure saturated her senses as they strained closer, harder, deeper.

To think that she'd believed him dead a mere ten minutes ago! The joy that had been stripped from her then was resurrected now. In the wake of her supposed loss, her love for him had tripled.

If time would just suspend its relentless march, she would cling to this moment forever. But the bliss scorching her body brought her ever closer to incineration. The magic of their union proved too powerful for either of them to command. It ran its course, burning hotter and brighter, until it spent itself in rapturous paroxysms that ended all too quickly, leaving her bereft and frightened for the future.

"Bronco?"

He was gazing down at her, suddenly alert, almost tense.

Belatedly she overheard what he was listening to—the sound of someone banging at the back door.

"You have to go?" she guessed with regret. A hundred scenarios could happen before she saw him again—
if
she ever saw him again. Getting him back, only to lose him again, was unthinkable.

He rolled away and pulled up his jeans in one continuous motion. "This gun belongs to one of the agents," he whispered, gesturing to the pistol he had left on her bedside table. "Be safe, Becca," he added, dropping a kiss on her lips before crossing to her window. "I'll be looking out for you."

"I love you," she called, watching him release the latch and open the window.

He paused, turning his head to regard her intently. For a breathless second, it seemed to her that he might acknowledge her words with a confession of his own.

But then from her kitchen came the sound of her back door crashing open. Someone had broken through the lock.

Bronco popped the screen and put one knee up on the sill. She heard him utter, "We'll be together soon. I promise." And in the next moment, he disappeared, jumping feetfirst into the darkness. She heard a bush rustle as he tripped over it, but the sound of him running away assured her that he was okay.

She had barely snatched the comforter off the floor and covered her naked body before the special agent named Hobbs burst into her room. Blood seeped from his nose. His wide eyes went straight to the curtains fluttering at the open window.

"You okay?" he demanded with gunfire urgency.

"Fine," she said, fighting an urge to laugh and weep simultaneously. "Is this your pistol?" she asked, pointing out the one beside her bed while noting that he wasn't carrying a gun.

"Who was in here?" he demanded, crossing toward her to snatch it up before stepping to the window to peer cautiously outside.

"A friend," she answered. Why bother lying? "I think he wanted to see how well you could protect me," she added pointedly.

He sent her a surly scowl, put his gun away, and lifted his wrist to his mouth. "The witness is unharmed," he reported to his partner. "I'll be right out to check out your situation."

Rebecca wondered what Meyers' situation could possibly be.

Hobbs pointed a warning finger at her. "Don't you leave this room," he ordered.

Rebecca waited for him to exit her bedroom before tunneling back into her nightie. The moisture seeping from inside her made her realize that, in their haste, neither she nor Bronco had spared a thought for birth control. With the mob determined to kill her and no guarantee of tomorrow, an unplanned pregnancy was the least of her worries.

But then she remembered his promise that they would be together one day, and hope fluttered momentarily, only to grow still and cold.

Until Max faced the consequences of consorting with the mob, Bronco would remain dead to those who knew him, and Rebecca would be sent to Hawaii for her safety's sake. How long she would remain there was anyone's guess. First Max would have to be jailed, the mob subdued. But, even then, what prevented them from keeping a hit out on her forever?

Existing five thousand miles away from Bronco while they waited for justice to run its course struck her as intolerable.

There had to be another way.

There
was
another way.

Maya had said if she could just think with her head instead of her heart, she could help NCIS secure what amounted to a confession from Max. All she had to do was to get him to talk about his affiliation with the mob under one of the security cameras in his house. HomeWatch would then send live feed of their conversation to the FBI, and they could promptly arrest him. Tony Scarpa would be picked up shortly thereafter, and, after testifying, Rebecca and Brant would be free to spend their lives together—perhaps transferring to the west coast as a precautionary measure against reprisal. But at least they'd be together.

You can do it,
her heart insisted.

Rolling out of bed, she dropped to her knees to search for her fallen cell phone.

Chapter 19

Rising from his seat on the front pew at the Chapel by the Sea, Max McDougal climbed the platform at the front of the church and approached the lectern to deliver the eulogy. Wearing his dress white uniform, the same one that he had worn on his wedding day three years ago, he wondered if Rebecca was remembering that occasion in this very sanctuary. As he moved behind the podium, he searched the packed church for a glimpse of her.

With all thirty-five members of his task unit present, plus a slew of other SEALs from Team 12, including Commander Montgomery and
his
boss, Admiral Johansen, it was no wonder he hadn't been able to find her. But
there
she was, seated on the last pew, behind the broad shoulders of the dozens of men in attendance.

Catching her eye, he sent her a faint nod of acknowledgment and was pleased when she returned it. The sunlight streaming through the tall windows of the contemporary chapel seemed to wash all color out of her face, or perhaps it was the black dress she wore—not her best color.

What thoughts lay behind her fixed regard? he wondered, as he smoothed his speech on the lectern. Was she remembering her wedding vows to love and to cherish him for better or for worse?

Clearing his throat, he projected his robust voice for all to hear what an outstanding SEAL chief Adams had been. Despite the possible addiction that had brought his life to a premature end, his unflagging optimism would always be an inspiration. His skill with a long-range rifle was the stuff of legends. He had served his country and his fellow frogmen tirelessly, and he would be sorely missed.

It was all so easy to say, now that the man wasn't here to steal his wife.

Confident of his eloquence, and under the approving gazes of his superior officers, Max abandoned the lectern to approach the life-sized poster of Adams' smiling face propped on an easel near the altar. Next to it, atop a wooden pedestal, there stood the white urn containing the man's ashes.

Fixing his gaze on a point just above and behind Adams' photo, Max rendered a lengthy salute as the bugler standing by the flag played
Taps
. Over the haunting notes, he could hear people in the congregation sniffling. It was a touching moment, the highlight of his day. Yet, oddly, there would be no three-volley salute, no pounding of SEAL tridents onto the lid of the coffin.

A belated suspicion tickled Max's nape as he cut his glance to the pristine white urn.

Why would any SEAL forsake the honor of taking his teammates' tridents with him into the next world?

What if he's not dead?

Goosebumps crawled over him as he lowered his arm. For that to be true, Kuzinsky would have had to deliberately deceive him. Turning his head, Max sent the master chief a piercing glare, only to receive a blank stare in return.

He gave himself a mental shake. It couldn't be. Of course Adams was dead. Just because the Scarpas questioned his housekeeping skills, that didn't mean he had no idea what was going on around him. He was still fully in command, still the puppet master.

Stepping aside to let the admiral and team commander pay their respects next, Max lost sight of Rebecca as SEALs stood up to make their way forward. He waited impatiently for her to do the same, but as the chapel slowly emptied, it became apparent that she had slipped out.

Discouraged, he reminded himself about the reception at The Galley at the Dunes, where he'd arranged for a light repast, giving his men the rest of the day off. Surely she would be there, and he could begin the challenging but achievable feat of winning her back.

* * *

"Max," Rebecca called. The ocean breeze, wafting across the parking lot, carried her voice in the wrong direction, but his head turned, proving he had heard her. At the point of stepping through the double-glass doors into The Galley, his gaze fastened on her, and her stomach immediately roiled.

Oh, God, help me do this.

She tentatively waved him over, holding her breath as his eyes narrowed with suspicion. He made his apologies to Admiral Johansen and crossed the parking lot to join her by her car, casting a surreptitious glance over his shoulder to see who might be observing them.

"Hello, Rebecca," he said, drawing to a stop before her. He tugged the bill of his white cap lower so that it cast a shadow over his eyes.

"Hi, Max." It took every ounce of her concentration to speak to him without betraying her disgust and contempt. Tucking a loose strand of hair behind one ear, she turned toward the trunk of her car. "I've been meaning to give you something."

He took a precautionary backward step as she pulled it open.