Into the Fire (8 page)

“Oh, good.” Dave brought him that first aid kit. “Because if it were a .45, you’d probably be dead. What the hell happened, James?”

Nash met his eyes in the mirror as he thoroughly washed his hands. With his dark hair tousled and his leading-man chin sporting
GQ
-quality stubble, even with fatigue and pain lining his face, he looked like he should have been on some Hollywood producer’s short list of candidates to play the next James Bond. “Nothing happened. I was in my room all night.”

Dave gazed steadily at this man—this very, very dangerous man—that he couldn’t quite call friend. “I know you don’t like me—”

“I like you fine,” Nash told him as he fished through the kit, finding and opening a pill bottle—antibiotics. He took one out, washing it down with tequila from a bottle that was sitting out on the bathroom counter. He dug back in the kit, then unwrapped what looked like a medical version of pliers. “I used to not like you, but you kinda grew on me. Especially after you saved Decker’s life.”

“Ah,” Dave said, as Nash shifted to sit on the sink counter, so he could clearly see his bullet wound in the mirror. Was he really intending to remove that bullet himself? Although Nash was right about it being spent.

Fortunately, Nash had been at the very far end of the range of the handgun that this bullet had been fired from, which was why it hadn’t blasted a hole through him. Instead, most of its energy “spent,” it had lodged in the fleshy part of his side. It was close to the surface and would be easy to remove.

Relatively easy to remove—compared to a bullet that
wasn’t
spent.

Significantly harder, compared to a splinter.

“I didn’t realize we’d, um, moved into a new phase in our relationship,” Dave continued. “I mean, you don’t really know me, so—”

“I know you well enough,” Nash told him. “Enough to know that you wish you were me. Or Decker. Probably Decker more than me, right?”

There was no point in answering that. Nash was just baiting him, trying to make Dave be the one who was flustered and defensive.

Except Dave wasn’t the one with a
bullet wound
after being—mysteriously—out all night.

Nash winced as he pulled back the raw flesh from around that entry wound, trying to widen the angry-looking hole, and succeeding only in making it bleed more. “If you were Decker, you’d sweep Sophia off her feet.”

Keep Sophia out of this.
Dave clenched his teeth around the words. No point in responding to the fact that Nash had leaped on Dave’s button with both feet. At the same time, he glanced at his watch. It was nearly 0630, which was a personal record. He’d actually gone almost twenty minutes without thinking about the ethereally beautiful blond woman who thought of Dave as her best friend.

Yeah, Dave and Sophia were tight—in a purely platonic way. Tight enough so that Sophia had often used him as a sounding board, to discuss the fact that she was hung up on Lawrence Decker, who relentlessly kept her at arm’s length.

But Nash wasn’t done with his attempt to piss Dave off. “Or maybe you’d settle for being me. You could give Tess to Decker and
then
sweep Sophia off her feet.”

In the world according to Nash, Decker had a thing for Nash’s fiancée. And yes, there was a time when Dave, too, had suspected Deck had feelings for Tess, but that was long past. These days, Decker seemed to be made of stone. If he felt anything for anyone, he hid it well. And as for Nash…

“Believe me,” Dave told Nash evenly, “I have no desire to be you.”

“Really,” Nash countered. “With Sophia in your bed, and Decker as your new best friend…? You’d all live happily ever after. Well, except for Tess, who for some reason really does love me. Arrrgh.” He’d tried and failed to get the bullet with that tool, and let loose a string of curses.

“And yet,” Dave pointed out as he took the surgical instrument from Nash—it would be much easier for him to get the bullet out from this angle, “when you’re not home with Tess, you stay out all night—doing something dangerous that gets you shot.”

“And yet, I do,” Nash agreed, as Dave clenched his teeth and went for it.
“Holy Mary, Mother of God!”

The bullet clattered in the sink, and, cursing a blue streak, Nash swiftly washed out the wound with antiseptic soap that Dave knew had to sting like hell. He then pressed a clean hand towel against his side to stanch the fresh flow of blood, his face tight and pale.

Dave washed his hands off in the tub, scrubbing his nails clean. “You need stitches. Old buddy old pal.”

“Yeah,” Nash agreed, moving to sit on the closed commode—another sign that he was in worse pain than he was letting on. He grabbed the tequila bottle, took another long slug. “But I’m good. I can—”

“That was a statement,” Dave pointed out. “Not a question or a request. Either I can help you with the stitches or Decker can.”

“Then go get him,” Nash said hotly, even as Dave unwrapped a sterile needle and thread. “Because I am not going to have you holding this over me for the rest of my life. But when you do go get him? Be ready for him to die. What he doesn’t know is keeping him alive. Do you understand?”

“No,” Dave said as he crouched next to Nash and began stitching him up, as he wasn’t particularly careful to not make it hurt.

“Ouch!
Ow! Shit!
”

“I
don’t
understand. Not at all,” Dave said. “You’ve got plenty of friends—”

“Who can’t fix this,” Nash told him through clenched teeth. “They can’t, but they’ll try, and then they’ll die, too.”

“Too?” Dave asked, as he tied off the thread.

Nash just shook his head, his face clenched with pain that was only partly from the wound in his side. He closed his eyes as Dave bandaged him, far more gently this time. “Dave. Please. I’m asking you to…Christ, I’m asking you to help me, okay?”

“No, you’re not.” Bandage secure, Dave washed his hands again. “In fact, you’re asking me to
not
help you.” He took the bottle from Nash’s hands. “And speaking of
not helping
—”

“Careful, I feel myself slipping back to actively not liking you.”

Dave put the bottle on the counter and pulled Nash up and into the other room. Still holding tightly to the bigger man, he yanked the cover from the bed, and knocked some of the multitude of pillows to the floor. “Our flight home’s not until noon. I’ll take your key and come back and wake you at nine-thirty.”

“Thank you,” Nash said, as he sank back into the bed. “Malkoff…”

“This never happened. I wasn’t here. You didn’t go anywhere. I got it,” Dave reassured him. “But if you ever change your mind…”

Nash shook his head and closed his eyes.

Dave let himself out of the room, closing the door tightly behind him.

D
ALTON
, C
ALIFORNIA

Hannah woke up on the living room floor, a pillow from the couch beneath her head, the fleece blanket she used when she read late into the night draped over her.

The house was still. Empty.

She sat up fast and the blood rushed out of her head, which was already feeling fragile from all the Johnny Walker she’d had last night—even before Murphy had arrived.

But falling over was not an option, and Hannah pushed herself to her feet.
God.
The sunlight streaming in the window was too bright and cheery, and she squinted against the sensation of knives to her brain as she looked out at the driveway.

Murphy’d either found his keys or he’d hot-wired his truck. Either way it was gone—and he was, too.

Apprehensive, Hannah turned to her uncle’s gun case, her head throbbing and her bad ankle shaky and weaker than usual. The glass door was locked, and she moved toward it as quickly as she could, counting…

They were all there. She counted again. Three hunting rifles and two sidearms. One big-ass shotgun to complete the collection.

Murph hadn’t taken a weapon with him when he’d left—which didn’t mean he still didn’t intend to hurt himself. A man could do a lot of damage behind the wheel of a pickup truck.

He hadn’t left a note, but that was his MO. He’d appear and disappear. It was nothing new.

The sex, however, had been shockingly new. But it was a mistake that they’d both acknowledged and apologized for. It wouldn’t happen again.

Yeah, it wouldn’t happen again, because
this
time? Hannah seriously doubted that Vinh Murphy was ever coming back.

Last night, Hannah had lost him as a friend—as absolutely as she’d lost Angelina to a gunman’s bullet all those years ago.

She didn’t have a phone that she could use, let alone a cell—not that it would work up here—so she couldn’t even text message him. With no Internet access, e-mail wasn’t an option, either. Unless she went into Dalton, the nearest little town—twenty-five miles away and
little
was a generous description—to use the computer at the public library…

Head throbbing so badly it was making her eyes water—yeah, that was why tears were running down her face—Hannah stripped the sheets from her bed and stuffed them into her washing machine.

The last of the Johnny Walker was still open on her bedside table. Instead of putting the top back on, she took the bottle with her into the bathroom and poured it down the sink.

And then she climbed into the shower, to get cleaned up for one of her rare forays back to civilization.

S
AN
D
IEGO
, C
ALIFORNIA

Bang, bang, bang, bang.

Eden woke up with a start, and then a flood of alarm as she realized someone’s arms—someone significantly bigger than Jerry—were wrapped tightly around her.

She fought to get free, and whoever he was released her almost immediately and she rolled off the edge of the bed and onto the floor.

Couch—it was a couch that she’d been sleeping on, pressed tightly up against the SEAL whose nickname was Izzy. She remembered it now.

All of it.

Dear Lord.

He loomed over her, concern on his face as he tried to help her up.

Whoa, he was jacked. Standing next to him, her dirtwad of an ex-boyfriend, Jerry, would have looked anemic. Even Danny would look skinny, which was saying something. Izzy was built kind of like the Rock, hard muscled and lean, only bigger. His bare chest was marked by a scar that looked even more angry in the daylight.
I tried to stop a bullet with my chest, only my superpowers weren’t working, so I kinda got shot.

God. Eden couldn’t imagine being able to joke about something like that. Yet Izzy had a joke or a flip comment about nearly everything.

And while he wasn’t handsome, not by a long shot, not like Jerry or even her brother, both of whom were prettier than she was, there was something about Irving Zanella’s quick smile. There was something, too, that gleamed in his dark eyes—amusement or intelligence or probably both—that made him good-looking. Charismatic. That was the word for him.

He had crazy charisma.

He was also crazy attracted to her. Eden had been around the block enough times to recognize
that
look in a man’s eyes. Not that there weren’t other obvious signals for her to read. Izzy was wearing only boxer shorts, after all. He realized it, too, and quickly sat down on the couch.

“Good morning,” he said, his voice thick from sleep.

“Hi.” Great, she was blushing as she tried to rearrange her shirt and her shorts. Her bathing suit top was completely twisted, the two triangles of fabric practically beneath her arms. She turned slightly away from him and…

Bang bang bang!

They both jumped—Izzy to his feet again.

“Zanella! Open the door! I know you’re home—I know Eden’s in there, too!”

Oh crap, it was her brother. Eden turned to Izzy. “You spoke to Danny?”

“I didn’t,” he said. “I swear, I…Oh, fuck me.” He met her eyes briefly. “I’m sorry, I…This
is
my fault. I called both Jenk and Lopez last night. I didn’t want to be alone with you, because…well, hello. Look what we did.” He shook his head. “What
I
did. It was all my fault. I took advantage of you, you know that, right?”

“Zanella! I swear to God, I’m going to kick down this door!”

“Hold on, asshole,” Izzy shouted. “I’ll be right there.” He looked back at Eden. “You ready for this?” he asked her. “Because if you’re not, I’ll stall him. You can go into the bathroom—shower if you want. I’ll go out with Danny and get bagels or something for breakfast. Bring ’em back…”

Eden looked into his eyes as the buzzer rang again. He was serious. “You didn’t take advantage of me,” she told him, as she once again started to cry. God, God, was she
ever
going to stop? She reached for the roll of toilet paper he’d so gallantly brought her last night. “
I
took advantage of
you.
I thought it would help, but…”

“Yeah, well,” he said as he headed for his bedroom. “In case you didn’t notice, I’m more than a few years older than you. I’ve been around long enough to know what was going on inside your head—and to know that what we did last night absolutely
wasn’t
going to help.”

He peeled off his boxers before he’d even gotten out of her line of sight and…Wow. Nice…tattoo. Eden quickly turned around, afraid that he’d catch her staring, suddenly aware that up to this point, nearly all of the men in her life had been mere boys.

“I’m the bad guy here,” Izzy said, coming back out, wearing a pair of cargo shorts, yanking a T-shirt down over his messy hair. “Okay?”

Eden opened her mouth to argue, but outside, the last of Danny’s patience evaporated.
Bang bang bang!

“I just want to get this over with,” she told Izzy. “If that’s okay with you.”

Izzy nodded, forcing a smile that softened the hard planes and angles of his face and made him look both younger and almost handsome. Almost. “It’s your call,” he told her. “But…maybe you should go into the bathroom while I get the door. I’ll make sure he’s alone, while you get, you know, cleaned up.”

Crap, she hadn’t even thought that Danny might not have come here alone. Her mother was the last person on earth she wanted to see right now. No, strike that. Greg, her wicked stepfather, won
that
honor. “Thanks,” she said, heading for the bathroom.