Hard Landing (39 page)

One down
.

Max shoved the laptop aside, sprang out of his chair, and tackled Nick to the ground. Within seconds, he controlled the blond man's weapon. Turning it against him, he shot him in the chest.

Two down.

The bearded thug was backing toward the foyer, dragging Rebecca with him and shrieking his boss's name. "Tony! Tony!"

But all Tony could do was writhe on the floor and moan.

Max watched the telltale dot settle ominously over the bearded man's forehead. Six inches lower and Rebecca would become the target.
Thunk! Phoof
. A dark red circle the size of a quarter appeared over the thug's unibrow while a pink cloud of brain matter billowed out the back of his skull. He dropped where he stood, leaving Rebecca hunched over, her hands over her mouth, stifling a scream of pure terror.

That made three.

Max rolled across the carpet, sprang up, and ran to her. Snatching her against him, he concealed as much of himself as possible behind her petite, quaking body as he started to retreat toward the hall. But then he froze, staring spellbound out the shattered window at the familiar form of a man he thought he would never see again.

Chief Brant Adams was rounding the swimming pool, stiff-arming his Sig Sauer in lieu of the deadly sniper rifle he had wielded moments earlier, and it was pointed directly at Max.

Max's ears rang in the aftermath of gunfire. How was it possible that the man he had poisoned could be back from the dead and looking fully intent on getting revenge?

"Stay back!" Max yelled. For the first time in his life, he heard his own voice crack with fear. "You'll
never
have her," he vowed, forcing her chin up with the barrel of Nick's pistol. He knew if he fired it and killed her that Adams would take him out in the next instant. At this point, that was looking like his only exit strategy. "She is
my
wife—all mine. I'll take her to hell with me if I have to!"

* * *

This is it,
Rebecca thought. The muzzle of the gun gouging her chin was still hot from the shot that had killed the thug named Nick. Tony Scarpa lay only feet away, sobbing in agony. The third man was also dead. She'd heard his skull explode right before he released her. And now Max, who had promised he would never let her go, was going to keep his word and take her to the grave with him.

"Max, please," she begged, so weak with fear and dread and regret that Bronco would have to watch her get killed that she could scarcely stand. Max kept her upright as he hugged her from behind. "Don't do this."

At Max's threat, Bronco had gone perfectly still, a torn expression on his face. "Becca, remember what you told me when I was leaving your apartment last night?" His gruff voice betrayed the certainty that she was about to be taken from him. "I should have said the same thing back to you."

He loves me!
Rebecca realized, as Max pressed the muzzle of his gun harder into her chin. How sad that she could neither revel in Bronco's confession now nor lament the loss of what they could have had. Max was going to enact her darkest presentiment and take her life before she'd barely begun to live again.

Suddenly, with a terrific crash, the front door burst open, suspending her dark thoughts. A stream of masked specters swarmed into the house, their assault rifles aimed at her, Tony, and Max. Caught between two armed parties, Max swiveled back and forth, his breath rasping in her ear, the muzzle of his gun bruising her tender flesh.

Then Doug Castle walked calmly into the house. Rebecca blinked at him in desperation as he surveyed the carnage in the great room. Crossing to the writhing Tony, he plucked up the man's fallen weapon and dropped it into the pocket of his trench coat. Tony stopped sobbing and stared up at him in astonishment.

"Well, Commander," Castle said, turning his attention to Max and looking not the least bit harried by Rebecca's predicament. "It looks like your money-making scheme with the mob backfired on you tonight," he observed, taking a step toward them.

"Get back!" Max's shrill command caused Doug Castle to raise his eyebrows. "I'll kill her," Max swore in a voice that made it horrifyingly apparent that he wasn't bluffing. "I'll kill us both. You are
not
going to take me in," he insisted, "as if I'm some low-life piece of shit like that bastard there!" He glanced at Tony, who'd gone back to moaning.

Doug Castle tipped his head to one side. "Of course not. You're a Navy SEAL commander, and you'll be shown due respect," he promised. His gaze met Rebecca's briefly then looked away. "All you need to do is step away from your wife. She's not a threat to you, is she?"

But Max's grip only tightened. "She betrayed me," he insisted in a tortured voice. "She's the reason you're here, isn't she?"

"Oh, no. I've had my eyes on you for a while, Max," Castle replied, rocking on his heels.

"I
won't
be taken! SEALs don't surrender. And they don't let their enemies live either."

The thick arm shackling her to Max's chest became a shackle. She could no longer draw air into her lungs. He expelled a shuddering breath, and she just knew that in the next instant her life would be over.

Crack! Crack! Crack! Crack!

Cringing, Rebecca welcomed the darkness, only it never came. Max's arms went slack as he keeled away from her. Her eyes flew open. The scream she'd stifled earlier erupted from her throat as she fell to her knees and found Tony dead, his chest riddled with bullet wounds. Max's Glock, which Tony must have just pulled out from behind his back, was still in his hand. He'd obviously intended to shoot her and Max simultaneously, only SWAT had taken him out before he could.

Rebecca sucked in a grateful breath.
I'm alive! I made it! But what about Max?

Very slowly, she turned her head to see what had become of him, only to wish she hadn't. He lay sprawled across the Italian leather loveseat with the top of his head blown off.

"Rebecca!" Bronco hurtled the window frame, skidding over broken shards of glass in his haste to get to her.

Too weak even to lift her arms in welcome, she let herself be hauled into his embrace as he dropped to his knees and gathered her tenderly to him. "You're okay. You're okay," he canted.

She could feel him trembling when he rocked her, his heart hammering against her breasts. "I love you, Becca." He pulled back far enough to gaze into her eyes. "I was so afraid I wouldn't get the chance to tell you that. God, I love you so much!"

"I love you, too," she whispered.

"Come on, baby. Let's get you out of here." He helped her climb unsteadily to her feet. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Agent Castle bending over Tony to check his pulse. As the agent yelled for an ambulance, Bronco led her past the phalanx of SWAT team members through the open door.

Maya Schultz stood on the front stoop pacing back and forth. Grabbing Rebecca's arm, she said, "I am so sorry." Tears shone in her eyes as she fought for her composure. "But you did it, Rebecca. We captured Max's account number, thanks to you—not that we'll need it to charge him, obviously, but it will explain these crazy circumstances." She lifted her gaze to Bronco. "And you," she added. "You saved her life—again."

Bronco shrugged. "I'd say it was a team effort. If you don't mind, I'm going to take her home."

Maya shook her head. "Not yet. I'm sorry, but we'll need to get statements from both of you first."

"We'll be out back then, if that's okay," he suggested.

"Sure. I'll come get you when we're ready."

Keeping one arm securely around her shoulders, Bronco escorted her around the side of the house and into the back yard, past the pool and the gazebo and across the lawn that Max had insisted on mowing himself because the gardener never got it right.

Rudee Inlet glimmered like a black sapphire under the thumb-nail moon hanging over it. The tang of brackish water filled her nostrils, eradicating the nauseating odors of gun oil and gore. Together they stepped out onto the pier, moving slowly over the wooden planks, past the dry dock that housed Max's boat, to the bench positioned at the point that jutted over deep water.

There, they sat down, side by side, thighs and shoulders touching. The wind that caressed her hair cut tiny rippling patterns across the water's glistening surface. On the opposite shore, lights twinkled in the many well-appointed houses.

When she thought about the past few months of her unraveling marriage and her growing friendship with Bronco, she could never have imagined that it would work out this way.

"I'm so lucky," she marveled, turning her head to take in Bronco's beloved profile. "I should be dead right now."

"No," he refuted. "I would never have let that happen." He lifted her hand to his mouth and kissed her knuckles tenderly. "You've been through so much, Becca." He lowered his head to look her in the eye. "Are you okay?"

His question had her raising one of her own. "Did you shoot Max when the SWAT team fired at Tony?" She searched his shadowed gaze. "Or did they kill him, too?"

He visibly swallowed. "Would you love me any less if I said yes?"

Did it make any difference? she wondered. Max was gone. SWAT would have killed him with or without Bronco's assistance. "No," she decided.

"I meant what I said when I told you I would protect you." His reply seemed to confirm that he'd participated in sending Max out of this world and into the next.

She gave a slow nod. "Then you meant it when you said you loved me, too?" she prompted.

"Hell, yeah, I meant it." His grin put the moon to shame with its luminescence.

Happiness chased away the horror still fresh in her mind. "Well," she declared, "in that case, I'm fine. I'm fine with everything," she added, letting him know that it made no difference whether his bullet had been the one to end Max's life or not. "In fact, I'm terrific."

He squeezed her to him. "I've always known that," he affirmed. "You're way too good for a shallow jerk like me."

She gave his arm a playful slap. "Stop it. You have proven through all of this that you are
nothing
like your father."

He laid his cheek against her temple and sighed with acceptance. "You're right," he admitted on a note of self-acceptance. "Turns out I'm the type to stick around. Bet you'll get sick of me one day," he predicted.

In spite of the horror that was still so fresh in her mind, a droll laugh tickled her throat. "Right," she replied, knowing she would never tire of loving him. "Like
that
is going to happen."

Epilogue

Rebecca brushed the hair out of her eyes as they headed into the wind, walking toward the beach from her mother's on-base home in Schofield Barracks, Honolulu. They'd arrived only two hours earlier to a warm Hawaiian welcome from her mother and her husband, complete with
leis
made of plumerias and tuberose. The sun sat warmly on her shoulders. The smells of seafood and suntan oil mingling on the breeze made her smile. In spite of the nightmares that still plagued her, life was good.

"Do you think she likes me?" Bronco's uncertain question drew her gaze to his worried countenance.

"Are you serious?" She squeezed his hand reassuringly. "You had her hook, line, and sinker when you asked her permission to date me. Her husband, too."

"But what if they think it's too soon?" he continued. "Max has been gone less than a month. Seems kind of tactless of us to show up acting like honeymooners."

"Which is why she hinted about you sleeping on the couch in the den."

"No problem," he earnestly agreed. "Whatever makes her happy."

His eagerness to please brought a laugh out of her. It felt so good to laugh again. "You would do that for me, wouldn't you?"

"Becca, I'd do anything to keep you in my life," he insisted, rubbing his thumb across her knuckles, a gesture that both soothed and aroused her. "If that means sleeping on the couch while I'm here, even though it'll drive me crazy not to hold you at night, I'll do it."

"Don't worry. Mom's pretty progressive. She'll come around when she sees how happy you make me."

To herself, Rebecca admitted that, even though her mother was open-minded, it was a relief not to have to tell her she was pregnant—although disappointment had been Rebecca's first reaction when her period had started a week late. But, since Bronco had hinted that they would have a gaggle of children one day, she hadn't dwelled on her loss for long.