The Bride and the Mercenary Page 22

  “Let her go, McNeil.”

  Malone’s features were impossible to make out. Through her half-closed lashes all she could see was a mottled pattern of moonlight and shadow, accentuated by the flickering glow from the blaze beyond the trees.

  “It’s me you want. It’s me you always wanted, isn’t it? I only wish I’d stopped you years ago, when you killed Joseph Mocamba. You were the cameraman, weren’t you?” Malone lowered the shotgun carefully. Even more carefully he bent and placed it on the ground at his feet.

  “So you finally remember.” Pearson sounded amused. “Yes, I was posing as a cameraman. And you and several other snipers had been brought in by Mocamba’s security advisers, who’d heard a rumor that the Executioner might be at the stadium that day. How close did you come to taking me out?”

  “I had you in my crosshairs,” Malone said evenly. “But I had no way of knowing who you were until it was too late. Mocamba was jostled by the crowd into my sight line and I couldn’t risk the shot. You must have pulled your trigger just as I held my fire.”

  His eyes met Ainslie’s. “You were right, champ. I’m probably not all I should be, but I’m not the man I thought I was.” One corner of his mouth lifted in a tired smile. “That’s a candle to take with me into the darkness,” he said softly.

  Slowly he raised his hands and locked them together at the back of his head. He looked at Pearson, his gaze steady and unafraid.

  “Take me for her,” he said quietly. “I’ll give you my word that I won’t try anything, McNeil. You still have time to get away, and I’m sure you set up a new identity to vanish into a long time ago. But let her go.”

  “You know, Malone, I think I believe you.” Ainslie felt Pearson’s arm slacken its hold across her throat. Keeping his eyes on Malone, he released her completely, and then stepped slightly away from her.

  “Her for you,” he said, the gun still inches away from her neck. “It’s a deal, Malone—but only because I know that letting Ainslie live without you for the rest of her life is much worse than anything else I could ever do to her. Goodbye, my dear,” he said to Ainslie without looking at her. “I doubt our paths will cross again.”

  “Don’t do it, Malone,” she croaked desperately, her throat raw from Pearson’s chokehold. “He’s right—I can’t lose you a second—”

  Pearson swung the gun away from her and fired. Malone staggered backward from the force of the bullet and fell.

  Unconcernedly Pearson pocketed the weapon in his hand and bent to pick up the shotgun Malone had surrendered. “I’ll send roses to his funeral,” he said lightly. “Red ones, weren’t they? Go on, Ainslie. I meant what I told him. I have no intention of killing you.”

  His hand reached out. His fingers touched the stock of the shotgun. The silent screams inside Ainslie’s head suddenly tore from her throat.

  “No! Dear God—noo-oo!”

  She launched herself at Pearson, knocking him off balance and falling with him to the ground, her left hand grasping at the collar of his shirt and her right hand already tightened into a fist. She felt her knuckles land with such force at the side of his jaw that his head snapped backward from the blow.

  He was as quick as a cat. Twisting away from her, his hand went swiftly to his jacket pocket as Ainslie lunged at him again. This time her punch landed high on his cheek, and she followed it up with a punishing left jab that knocked him back down. His hand came from his pocket empty, and she saw the gun he had been looking for lying a few feet away in some leaves.

  “You bitch!” His voice was thickly slurred, and she saw the blood running from the side of his mouth. “I’ll send you to hell!”

  “You’re the one who’s going there, Pearson,” Ainslie grated. “For killing Malone, for killing Joseph Mocamba, for killing your own brother and all the other thousands of innocent victims whose lives you snuffed out.” The sound she had been hearing for the last few seconds grew louder, and she smiled tightly at him. “You’re going to hell. I’m going to send you there and the wild geese have come to escort you down. Do you hear them, Pearson?”

  He made a desperate grab for his gun, and she hit him again, this time sending him smashing facedown into the fallen leaves. She wanted to see his face turn into a bloody pulp, she thought coldly, pulling him up and hitting him again, and then again. She wanted to hear him scream. She wanted to stop this pain inside her that was tearing her apart.

  She wanted to bring Malone back.

  Her arm was already drawn back for the next blow, but she stopped herself before she could send her fist crashing into his face again. She looked down at the unconscious mask that had only seconds ago been the coldly patrician features of Pearson McNeil.

  He was a monster, she thought dully. If she killed him like this, she would be one, too.

  And it wouldn’t bring Malone back. Nothing would bring him back this time.

  She shook her head, as if to clear it, and realized that the sound she had heard was the thin wail of sirens from approaching fire engines. It was over, she thought. It was all over.

  She got painfully to her feet, averting her eyes from Malone’s still body. She didn’t want to think of him as dead anymore, she told herself unsteadily. She’d done that for two long years, and she didn’t want to do it anymore. From now on she would think of him as he’d wanted her to remember him—as the man she loved, who’d held her in his arms and taken her to the stars.

  She took a limping step away and heard the click of the automatic’s safety behind her. Slowly she turned around and saw the Executioner facing her, his gun in his hand.

  “I hear them too, Ainslie.” She could barely make out what he was saying through his shattered jaw. “You’re right—they’re coming for me. They’re all around me. They know I killed one of their own back at that damned airport.” His broken lips stretched into a madman’s grin. “But if I’m going to hell anyway, I might as well make one last kill.”

  The gun in his hand came up. With dreadful clarity she saw him take aim.

  And out of the corner of her eye, she saw Malone rise to his full height, the shotgun held loosely in the crook of one arm as he pulled back on the trigger and discharged both barrels straight into the Executioner’s chest.

  A terrible sound came from Pearson’s throat as he slammed backward against a nearby tree trunk. The gun flying from his hand, he frantically beat at the empty air around him as if to ward off something that only he could see.

  His terrified eyes suddenly opened to their widest, and then all life disappeared from them and he slid slowly down to the ground.

  “Are you okay, Lee?” Malone’s voice was a hoarse rasp.

  Ainslie looked at him, her gaze filling with tears.

  “You’re dead. He was the Executioner and he killed you. Malone’s dead.” Her hands hung uselessly at her sides and her shoulders were bowed. She shook her head. “You’re a ghost. This time he didn’t come back.”

  “This time I didn’t leave, Lee.” He was beside her, and he turned her to face him. “The Executioner’s aim was off. Maybe he’d started to need those glasses for more than reading, or maybe the geese had something to do with it. But he didn’t kill me. I think my shoulder might be broken, though.”

  The wry smile was Malone’s. The eyes were the same brilliant green as his. And no other man had ever gazed at her the way he was doing now—as if she was the first, the last, and the only woman he would ever love.

  Ainslie looked up at him, the tears streaming heedlessly down her cheeks.

  “Malone, is it really you?” she breathed in incredulous joy.

  She didn’t give him a chance to answer. Her lips opened under his, her arms went around his neck, and Ainslie O’Connell held onto Seamus Malone as if she would never, ever let him go…

  …and somewhere high in the sky above them, a ragged vee-shaped flight of wild geese, moonlight on their wings, flew into the night to eternity, and redemption.

  Epilogue

  M
aybe “Danny Boy” wasn’t the most traditional song for a newly married couple’s first dance, Ainslie thought as Malone took her hand and drew her into his embrace. But the hauntingly plaintive air held a special meaning. She tipped her head back and met his gaze.

  “Have I told you tonight how beautiful you are?” he asked softly, as they circled the floor. “With that dress and those violets in your hair you look like something out of a fairy tale, Lee.”

  “I told the saleswoman absolutely no frills,” she said, smiling. “When I saw this, my only worry was whether the aunts could arrange a wedding soon enough so that I would still fit into it. Plain satin and a bias cut don’t hide much, Malone.”

  A corner of his mouth lifted. “I know you can eat like a stevedore and not put on an ounce. You’ll probably be able to wear this at our fiftieth anniversary, honey.”

  “Maybe.” She gave him a wide-eyed look. “But it’s a good thing you accepted that job Sully offered you running the security division of his firm. You’ll be able to keep me in all the new outfits I’m going to need in the next few months.”

  Around the dance floor she glimpsed the faces of her aunts, Kate escorted by Billy Dare and Cissie and Jackie beaming as they watched her. Sullivan, a two-month-old Megan cradled in his arms, was sitting at a nearby table with Bailey and Tara, and even as Ainslie’s gaze met her brother’s he closed one eye in a wickedly slow wink.

  He knew, she realized with a small start of amused surprise. And any minute Malone would put two and two together, but for now she was content to just stay here in the circle of his arms and let the song play to a finish.

  True love never died, she thought, feeling Malone’s heartbeat beneath her outspread palm as he maneuvered her one last time around the floor. That’s what the song really meant. That was why she had chosen it. The final strains of the violin echoed in the hushed room and Malone pulled her closer, bending his head to kiss her.

  She felt him stiffen. His head jerked up suddenly, belated comprehension spreading across his face.

  “A few months? You mean you’re—you mean we’re going to have—” He broke off, his gaze searching hers.

  Once she’d seen ghosts and darkness in those emerald eyes, Ainslie thought, nodding up at him and feeling her throat tighten foolishly. But after two long years, the ghosts and the darkness were finally behind them. She saw the incredulous joy spread across his face, and then his mouth came down on hers. His arms tightened around her as if he would never let her go.

  And then, like wine and perfume and a lover’s kiss, the faint scent of violets swirled around Ainslie O’Connell Malone and the last man she would ever love…

  ISBN: 978-1-4592-4287-6

  THE BRIDE AND THE MERCENARY

  Copyright © 2002 by Sandra Hill

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  * The Avengers