The Bride and the Mercenary Read online

  He looked up at her quickly. “No. I don’t want you any more involved than you already are. I brought this on you—this, and everything else. I never should have come into your life.” His eyes searched hers. “You said you put roses on my grave. You shouldn’t have had to go through that.”

  “Red roses,” she agreed steadily. “Red roses for true love, Malone. Even if you’d never come back to me, I wouldn’t have regretted a single moment of loving you.”

  She saw him start to take a step toward her, and then check himself. He shook his head. “Maybe not. But today you had a chance to make a new life for yourself, and instead I dragged you into my nightmare again. At the very least they want to use you as a way of drawing me out. It was you they followed to the hospital this evening.”

  “You don’t know that, Malone—” she began, but he interrupted her.

  “I looked up your brother’s number in the phone book and called his house, saying I was an old friend of Sully’s who’d blown into town. The woman who answered said his wife had just gone into labor and he’d rushed her to the hospital. I figured you’d show up sooner or later, so I was waiting for you and I saw you arrive, but before your taxi had a chance to drive away, two men pulled up behind it. One of them got out and talked to your cabbie for a minute. They must have been the orderlies you saw on the maternity ward.”

  “So two men drove up behind my cab,” Ainslie said shortly. “Maybe it was a coincidence, for God’s sake.”

  “It’s never a coincidence.” Finally crossing the space between them, he took her hands in his and pulled her from her perch on the arm of the sofa. “I’ve answered your questions. Now I want an answer to the one I asked you. The man you were supposed to marry today—who is he? Does he know why you ran out on the wedding?”

  “His name’s Pearson McNeil.” Ainslie tried to pull her hands away, but he held them tight. “And yes, I talked to him afterward. He said until I finally laid you to rest, I wouldn’t be able to start over with someone else. He was…he was very sweet about it.” She looked down at her feet, the memory of her meeting with Pearson still an unhappy one.

  “He sounds like a good man.” Transferring both her hands to one of his, he tipped her face up, forcing her to meet his gaze. “I think you should take his advice, Lee. I’ve been dead for two years. Bury me again. Build a life with your Pearson, and forget that I ever came back.”

  She stared at him in disbelief. “But you did.”

  “And maybe I shouldn’t have.” Finally releasing her, he swept an encompassing glance around the sparsely furnished room, the tightly closed drapes at the window. “If you’re married to someone else, they’ll leave you alone, Lee. They’ll know whatever connection there once was between us no longer exists.”

  “And they’ll be wrong. You’re wrong, if you think that.”

  There was no heat in her tone, but her chin lifted. “I’d already decided to tell Pearson our marriage was off for good before I met you at the hospital tonight. Even death hadn’t been able to destroy what I felt for you, and I knew that however long I lived, and whoever else came into my life, nothing ever could.” At her sides, her hands curled into fists. “The connection exists, dammit. It’ll always exist, on your part as well as mine. They took away your memories, but they couldn’t completely erase me from your mind, could they?”

  “No, they couldn’t do that.” His smile didn’t reach his eyes. “Whatever else they do to me, they’ll never be able to do that. But maybe one day you’ll want to sever that connection yourself, Lee. Maybe one day you’ll realize that even though it existed, the man it bound you to never really did.”

  “Because you can’t remember your past?” She took in his tensely watchful stance and the tight set of his mouth, and her voice softened. “It has to be hell for you, Malone. But I knew the man I fell in love with—knew him right down to the depths of his soul. And even if your memory never comes completely back, I’m not worried that there’s something hidden there that would turn me against you.”

  His gaze held hers. “Still a fighter, aren’t you, Lee? I should have known you wouldn’t give up on me.”

  “Once a boxer, always a boxer,” she agreed evenly. “It takes a knockout punch to put me down for good, Malone. Nothing less ever took me out.”

  “You’re a tough one, O’Connell.” He reached out and gently tucked a blunt section of hair behind her ear. “You know, when I saw you in that alleyway today, for a minute I thought you weren’t real. You looked like a princess.”

  “Come off it, Seamus.” She felt a sudden prickling behind her eyelids. “The dress was awful.”

  “The dress was awful,” he agreed, his smile one-sided. “But you were beautiful. I was almost afraid to touch you.”

  “John Smith did more than touch me,” she said softly. “What was going through his mind when he kissed me, Malone?”

  “Oh, I don’t know.” His gaze was pensive, and his hand still rested on her hair. She could feel him idly twining a strand around one finger. “That you were proof the world wasn’t all violence and fear. That your eyes were as blue as a summer evening. That he wished he was the man you thought he was.”

  He let her hair untwine from his finger. “That he knew he wasn’t.”

  For a long moment the two of them stood, a hand span apart, their eyes on each other, and neither of them saying anything.

  They didn’t need words, Ainslie thought, drinking in the sight of him. Words were for other people, not for them. They’d always known what was in each other’s heart.

  She shifted slightly, and slowly he let his hand drop to her shoulder. His gaze, which only a moment ago had been so open she’d felt she could see through it to his innermost thoughts, became once more opaquely unreadable. A muscle in his jaw moved.

  “You’re right, of course,” he said expressionlessly. “Paul was my partner. If anyone can give us some answers, he can.”

  He walked over to the small table, and picked up the set of keys he’d thrown on its surface when they’d arrived. He tossed them in his hand, once, and then she saw the broad shoulders under the dark sweatshirt stiffen in resolution. He shot her a tight smile.

  “So let’s go ask the man some questions,” he said shortly, turning to the door. He opened it for her.

  “And let’s pray we can live with the answers,” he added in an undertone as she preceded him out into the hall.

  SHE HADN’T SAID MUCH since they’d left the apartment, but once or twice Seamus had felt her glance his way. He’d returned her glances, and in the dark interior of the car had seen the gleam of passing lights pick out an answering light in her eyes, had seen the slow curve of her smile. He’d forced himself to return her smiles.

  He didn’t feel like smiling. He didn’t want to be doing this. He had the feeling that pretty soon everything was going to go down, and go down bad. He turned off the main thoroughfare, slowing a few minutes later to make a second turn.

  Paul had joked once about being the complete suburbanite, with the gas barbecue, the split-level, ranch-style house, the ruler-straight landscaping that was indistinguishable from every other house on his block. His joke had been self-deprecating, but his smile had been that of a man who was completely content with his life. At the time, Malone had envied him. He didn’t now.

  He was about to blast Paul Cosgrove’s safe and ordinary little world into so many pieces that all that would be left after tonight would be a smoking ruin. If his ex-partner was lucky, tomorrow morning he might be left standing in the middle of it.

  Nausea rose in his throat. The scar on the side of his head throbbed. He took his foot off the gas and let the nondescript Ford coast past neat lawns, most of them raked clear of fallen leaves. This was the American dream, he thought bleakly, or at least one facet of it. He was the nightmare.

  “We’re probably going to wake him up, Malone.” Beside him Ainslie was peering doubtfully at the passing houses.

  “Yeah, it looks like
we will.” She was obviously trying to keep her tone conversational, but he’d heard the unsteadiness in her voice. He forced his own to remain unconcerned, wondering if this would be the final time anything he might do would be capable of allaying her fears. “Folks go to bed at a decent hour around here, city girl.”

  He heard her quick laugh, and despite the circumstances, his heart did a foolish little flip-flop in his chest. His right hand tightened on the steering wheel, and with his left he felt surreptitiously for the automatic he kept beside the driver’s side door.

  What he’d told her had been the truth—he did remember every single moment of their time together. It had been the closest to heaven he supposed he was ever going to get.

  And it had all been built upon a lie, because if she’d known the truth about him at the start, she would have shown him the barest of social courtesies.

  Sullivan had known, of course. Since then he apparently hadn’t found it necessary to reveal to his sister that the man she grieved over hadn’t been what she’d thought he was. Malone didn’t know whether he was grateful for Sully’s reticence or not, but he knew one thing for sure.

  If Terrence Sullivan had ever even suspected the real truth about his sometime buddy and possible future brother-in-law, he would have taken Malone out, or died trying.

  You don’t know for sure, he told himself bleakly, easing off on the gas as he saw Paul’s house just ahead. You don’t know anything for sure, dammit, because you can’t remember.

  Except that, too, was a lie. He had one startling clear and horrific memory, and it was enough to tip the balance between faint hope and cold certainty. And if it wasn’t, Paul would soon fill in the blanks.

  “There’s a light on inside, Seamus. I hope Celeste isn’t still up.”

  As he pulled over to the curb, Ainslie fumbled with her seat belt. Her hands were shaking, he noted.

  “Sorry.” Her voice was curt, but he knew her curtness wasn’t directed at him. “I’m nervous. This…this isn’t going to be pleasant.”

  “No.” He hoped his own edginess wasn’t showing. “But I didn’t see any suspicious traffic in the area, so I think we’re safe enough.”

  “That’s not the part that’s bothering me. After your funeral, Paul was the only one I felt understood what I was going through. He held me in his arms and let me cry until I couldn’t cry any more. I didn’t stay in contact with him, but I never forgot the kindness and compassion he’d shown me.” Her voice hardened. “He knew all the time. He knew at the funeral, damn him.”

  If Paul’s betrayal could pierce her so deeply, how would she survive the next few minutes? Malone thought in sudden despair. He couldn’t do this to her. It would be better to not know for sure, to turn away from this quiet, ordinary house on this shadowed street, to get her to safety and then to get as far away from her as he could, never to see her again. He didn’t need the confirmation he’d come here for. He knew what he was. He just didn’t want to see that knowledge reflected in her eyes.

  And that was the real reason he wanted to turn tail and run. Sick self-loathing washed over him. She needed to know. She needed to have her image of him destroyed so completely that the next time he was buried, not even the smallest fragment of her heart would be placed in the grave with him. The truth was going to set her free.

  And it was going to condemn him.

  “Paul knew,” he agreed harshly. “But maybe he thought his silence would shield you, Lee.”

  “From what?”

  He’d spoken too carelessly, he saw. His Lee—I can think of her as mine for the next few seconds, at least, he thought stubbornly—had a fighter’s instincts. Her head had jerked up, her expression, as she looked sharply at him, held the faintest glimmer of alert suspicion. She could sense the blow coming, Malone thought. She just didn’t realize yet that it was the knockout punch she’d spoken of earlier.

  The one that’ll take you out of my life for good, sweetheart, he told her silently. He shrugged, suddenly wanting to get this over with.

  “That’s what we’re here to find out. Let’s go.”

  There was a dim bulb shedding feeble yellow light at the side entrance of the house, located just before the setback garage. Making a quick decision, Malone nodded at Ainslie.

  “Not the front door. It’s too exposed. We’ll be out of sight from the street here.”

  Accepting his whispered command, she fell into step beside him, and almost immediately stumbled over a crack in the paved walk that paralleled the drive. He caught her arm, and she glanced gratefully at him.

  “He’s the only one who hasn’t raked his leaves,” she said in an undertone. She frowned. “Watch those poles.”

  He’d seen them already, carelessly heaped at the side of the house, some of them partially obstructing the driveway. They were long metal tubes, and even in the poor light it was possible to see that they were painted in bright shades of orange and green. Tangled in a heap across them were lengths of steel chain.

  Ainslie paused. She nudged one of the chains with her sneaker-clad toe, and then looked up at him, her brow clearing.

  “It’s just a swing set,” she said softly, a hint of rueful amusement in her voice. “It must belong to…” The slight smile disappeared from her lips and her expression became stricken. “They’ve got a little boy, Malone. I’d forgotten.”

  He could feel the solid weight of the gun in the small of his back, where he’d snugged it in the waistband of his jeans. He looked away from the swing set.

  “It’s too late for him to be up, Lee. All we’re going to do is talk to his father, and then leave.”

  “And Celeste’s a teacher. She’s probably asleep, too, by now.” She sounded as if she were trying to reassure herself, but she moved past the pile of metal without further comment.

  Either Paul wasn’t the complete suburbanite he’d claimed to be, or he’d let things slide lately, Malone thought cynically, avoiding a dislodged chunk of ornamental edging. He raised his hand to knock on the paint-peeling side door.

  “No.” Ainslie touched his arm. “He might panic if he sees you. Stay out of sight until he opens the door.”

  She was right—probably more right than she knew. If what he feared proved to be true—and it will, he told himself coldly, you know damn well it will—then Paul’s reaction would be far past panic. He would know immediately, and with hopeless, doomed certainty, that Malone was there for one reason only.

  Melting into the shadows a foot or so away, he reached around behind him and unobtrusively slid the gun from the waistband of his jeans. He snapped off the safety just as Ainslie’s knuckles rapped firmly on the door.

  “I can hear someone coming.” She didn’t turn to him as she spoke, but kept her eyes ahead and her voice low. “It sounds too heavy to be Celeste.”

  “As soon as I step forward, get out of the way.”

  This was it, Malone thought. This was the last moment that she would be his. This was the last moment of the love she’d told him would never die.

  And then my soul, if I have one, will have lost the only home it ever knew, he told her silently. Your brother once told me he believed in myths, Lee. He thought that when a mercenary died, the wild geese that the Irish legends warn of would come down and take him with them, searching for all eternity to find redemption. But I don’t believe in fairy tales. I just believe in hell.

  “My God—Ainslie?”

  Through the aluminum screened door came Paul’s voice, instantly recognizable even after all this time. But the sharpness of surprise in it was overlaid with a slight slur. His grip tightening on his weapon, Malone frowned.

  “I know it’s late, Paul.” He saw Ainslie clasp her hands nervously in front of her, and knew the gesture wasn’t an act. “It’s unforgivable for me to show up here out of the blue like this after all this time, but I have to talk to you. It’s…it’s about Malone.”

  “Malone?” The slurred tone was gone. “Maybe you’d better come in.”
From his vantage point Malone saw the screened door swing open, saw Paul’s arm, incongruously clad in a baggy plaid sleeve, holding it there. “What about Malone? Has someone been asking questions about him?”

  Swiftly Malone stepped forward out of the shadows. “You could say that, Cosgrove.” His voice sounded harsh, even to his own ears. The effect on the man in front of him was electric.

  Paul’s face was instantly ashen. His eyes widened in what looked like horror, and the skin over the dark cheekbones seemed suddenly stretched taut. He opened his mouth, but no words came out.

  Beside him Malone heard Ainslie’s quickly indrawn breath. She had been expecting some sort of reaction from Paul, but not this, he knew. He felt her confused gaze turn his way, but he kept his eyes on the man in the doorway. Even as he watched, the dark eyes closed briefly, as if in acceptance, and the shoulders under the plaid robe sagged.

  “You’ve come to kill me. I guessed you would someday.” Paul’s voice was flat. He opened his eyes and met Malone’s gaze. “She knows nothing about it, I swear. I know you have no reputation for mercy, but she must have meant something to you once. Let her live. Kill me, but let her live.”

  “What’s he talking about, Malone?” Ainslie’s voice was tremulous with outrage. “‘No reputation for mercy’? What’s that supposed to mean?” She turned to Paul, still standing motionlessly in the doorway. “It’s Malone, for God’s sake! Who did you think it was? We just came to ask you some questions, Paul—you owe us that much, dammit!”

  “She doesn’t know?” Paul looked suddenly sick. His gaze searched Malone’s.

  “She doesn’t know. And let’s pretend I don’t, either.” Without warning, the pain stabbed once, cruelly, through his head, and Malone fought to keep his tone even. He made a small gesture with the gun. “So answer the lady’s question, Cosgrove. Just who do you think I am?”

  “I won’t spend the last seconds of my life playing some stupid game with you.” Paul’s jaw tightened. “All the reports say that at least your kills are quick and clean. You can give me that, damn you.”