CHAPTER THIRTY

Beth didn’t want to move. She lay curled up on the floor of the great room, lit only by the nearly guttered candles and the fire. She could see Mahmoud and Dylan over in the corner. Neither of them seemed particularly distressed that the cozy dinner party had been broken up by a sniper’s bullet but then, Dylan had seen a lot in his young life. If Mahmoud had seen as much then this was simply business as usual.

Would she ever learn to take it in stride? To be able to smile up at MacGowan as he took off after a gunman? She was going to have to learn.

She’d figured out something while she’d been curled up on the cold, tiled floor of the farmhouse, Finn’s touch, his kiss still lingering on her skin. She’d thought she’d stay with him as long as he’d let her. Take what she could and mourn later.

Fuck that. It was going to take dynamite to dislodge her. He might not have realized it yet, but it came to her clearly and solidly. He was hers. To keep. She wasn’t letting him go easily, not without a damned good reason. She wasn’t going to slink away when dismissed with her tail between her legs. She was going to fight for him, tooth and nail. Even if he was the one she had to fight.

At one point she thought she heard the distant sound of a gun, and she felt a moment’s panic. It quickly subsided. Whoever had been shot, it wasn’t MacGowan. She would know if something happened to him. He was bone of her bone, flesh of her flesh. She would know.

She lost track of time. She could hear Mahmoud and Dylan quite clearly, the insulting banter that was the precursor to male bonding, and she smiled to herself. They were talking about video games, and it might as well be Russian. She closed her eyes and drifted.

She sound of the door opening startled her, and she looked up to see MacGowan’s face reflected in the firelight. He looked grim, and there was blood-spatter on his face and clothes. Of course there was.

“Danger’s over. Go to bed, all of you. Mahmoud, Dylan can show you where a spare bedroom is, or you can bunk with him. Peter and I won’t be back for a few hours.”

Mahmoud rose with unhurried grace. “He’s okay? Genevieve will kill me if anything happens to him.”

“He’s fine, kid. He said to tell you to get your ass to bed – you’re heading back first thing in the morning.”

“Why? I like it here.”

“Take it up with your father.” His eyes swiveled around to Beth, but he didn’t meet her gaze. “Go to bed, Beth. I’ll see you in the morning.”

Well, that was a message if ever she heard one, she thought as the door closed behind him. She’d been dismissed. He was probably thinking he could send her on with Madsen. If he was, he was doomed to disappointment.

Her muscles screamed when she rose, and she reached over and turned on one of the lights. The boys didn’t seem to be interested in moving, and it had to be at least one in the morning. “You two,” she said. “You can help me with the dishes.”

Both of them looked far more horrified than a sniper’s bullet had warranted. “I’m tired,” Dylan said, yawning convincingly. “MacGowan said …”

“Get your asses in the kitchen, boys.”

Clean up went fast, with Dylan and Mahmoud complaining and bantering the entire time, and by the time she headed up the narrow stone stairway they had already demolished the last of the Ben and Jerry’s and were starting on some of the frozen pizza in the chest freezer. They were going to be up all night, she realized with a wry smile. She was about ten years older and a hundred years more ancient.

She stripped off her clothes, taking a quick hot shower, then wrapped a towel around her and went straight into MacGowan’s bedroom. I’ll see you in the morning, indeed. After all this time he ought to know better.

As she slid between the cool sheets she realized with a shock that it hadn’t been all that time. She’d fallen desperately, irrevocably in love in ten days – how absurd was that? But it was a hell of a ten days, and after all they’d been through she knew him better than she had ever known anyone in her life.

It wasn’t going to be easy. He might take some convincing. Some bribing. Threatening. Blackmail. Whatever worked. He wasn’t getting rid of her that easily.

She dreamed it was raining, then realized she was hearing the sound of the shower. She needed to stay awake, she told herself. If he came in, saw her there and decided to try another room she needed to be awake enough to go after him. But the sound lulled her back to sleep, and it was the feel of the mattress sinking beneath his weight that woke her the next time.

He was sitting at the end of the bed, his hair wet from the shower. She’d glanced down, hoping he’d be naked, but he was wearing sweatpants low on his hips. Almost as tasty, she thought sleepily, holding out her hand to him.

He didn’t move. “I told you to go to bed.”

“I did.”

“You knew what I meant.”

“I did,” she said again. “Whatever gave you the idea that I was good at following orders?”

She was hoping to get a laugh out of him, but his expression remained bleak. “Peter’s leaving in the morning and you’re …”

“No,” she said, before he could say the words. “I’m staying with you.”

She couldn’t read the expression on his face. “Do you know what I do for a living, Sister Beth?”

“You stopped calling me that, you know. After we made love the first time.”

“I don’t make love, I fuck.”

“After we made love,” she repeated firmly. “So don’t start now. It won’t work. You can’t distance me by a stupid name.”

He stared at her. “How many men do you think I’ve killed since I met you?”

It was a horrible question, shocking her, but she didn’t back down. “I’m sure you haven’t killed anyone you didn’t need to.”

“The man who hit you.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“I didn’t need to kill the man who hit you. He was talking, Taka was going to tie him up and leave him there for his employer to find.”

“Why did you kill him?”

“Because he hit you.” He rose, moving over toward the shuttered window. It was growing light, another day with time turned on its head. “I almost got my head blown off tonight.”

“I know.”

He shook his head. “I mean later. Up on the hill. I’d caught the sniper, and I was holding him for Madsen. I was thinking I didn’t need to kill him, didn’t have to have anyone else’s blood on my hands tonight, and I thought that would make you happy.”

“And?” She wasn’t sure if she was going to like what was coming next.

“And I got sloppy. Just as I did at the restaurant. You cried out and I dropped my guard and nearly got us all killed. I started thinking about you tonight and the old man got the drop on me. If it weren’t for Madsen I’d be dead. And he was an old man. Ancient.”

She tried to figure out what he was telling her, and it wasn’t sounding good. “What you’re saying is I’m a danger to you, right? That because of me you kill when you don’t need to, you make mistakes that you can’t afford to make.”

“Yes.”

“And you’re telling me you’re kicking me out rather than end up dead.”

He turned then, faint surprise on his grim face. “No.”

“Then what are you saying?”

“I’m going to need a new job.”

For a moment the words didn’t penetrate, when they did she began to tremble, afraid that he might not mean what she thought he meant.

He turned and leaned against the wall, instinctively out of range of the window even when there was no danger left. “I don’t need your money – I’ve got more than enough to support me for years to come while I decide what I want to do. So you don’t need to worry that I’m marrying you for your money.”

Okay, that stopped her heart cold. She struggled to pull her hard-won calm back around her. “Maybe I’ll marry you for your money then.”

Some of the grimness left his face, and she realized he’d been worried. Uncertain. “You could do,” he said. “I don’t care why.”

“Don’t you?”

“These things tend to work better when people are in love.” He looked at her, his eyes sliding over her bare shoulders, the covers clutched in her suddenly nerveless hands.

“Do you even believe in love?”

“Yes. I do.”

She sighed. “For a brilliant man you can be awfully stupid at times. You know I’m desperately, hopelessly in love with you.”

He smiled then, a sweet, heart-breaking smile. “No, love. Not hopelessly at all.”