Kiss and Tell (34 page)

"There's still at least one more out there. Go stand near the fire and keep warm. I'm going to secure this piece of crap, then we need to contact someone to get us out of here."

She touched his lips with just the tips of her cold fingers and smiled. "You won't get any argument out of me on that one."

He loosened his grip a fraction until her toes touched the ground. She grinned up at him. He cupped her cold face between his hands. God, she was so soft, so sweet. So
alive
.

At knee level, Lurch groaned.

Jake snagged the front of Marnie's jacket in his fist, drawing her up against his body as he kissed her again, short and sweet. Then he bent to grab the other man by the neckline of his suit.

Marnie gave Lurch an evaluating glance. "I think he's choking."

"No, he isn't." Jake shook the man until he groaned again. "See? He can breathe just fine." He gave Lurch a good shake when the man twitched. "Go get warm. I'll be right with you."

Shaking her head, Marnie limped over to the ruin of Jake's cabin. The closer she got, the warmer the air felt against her cold cheeks and the more she shook.

Every last ounce of energy seemed to drain out of her, and she felt sick to her stomach. She sank to her knees on the wet ground and wheezed raggedly.

Jake's ex-friend screamed obscenities as Jake dragged him over to the tree stump and propped him up against it. Their voices blurred and droned as she dropped her head to her knees and took several deep, shuddering breaths. The last few hours hardly seemed real.

Jake shouted something in her direction. It sounded like, "Are you all right?" She lifted a hand to show she was at least still breathing.

Marnie looked at her clenched hands curled on her knees, saw Lurch's blood there, and picked up a handful of soil. Like Lady Macbeth, she started scrubbing her hands like a madwoman. The soil was icy, not that muddy, and pretty ineffectual. She scrubbed harder, listening to the drone of the men's voices over the sound of her teeth chattering and the arrhythmic beat of her heart.

She desperately wanted Jake's arms around her. Preferably while they were lying in a steaming hot bath. She lifted dazed eyes to see what his ETA might be.

To her left moonlight glinted for just a second off metal. Her eyes shot from left to right. Goose bumps prickled the back of her neck, and she half stood, fumbling beneath her jacket to get to the back pocket of her jeans.

"Jake," she croaked.

He was bent over Lurch. He looked up at the sound of her voice and frowned.

The high ping of a bullet cut through the air. She heard Jake's shout of pain and pulled the little gun out of her pocket, firing it into the shadows under the tree without really aiming.

Jake started running toward her in slow motion. She kept her eyes fixed on the man who'd come out of the trees. The bad guy boldly stood, feet spread, weapon spitting bullets toward Jake.

Only Jake had his terrified gaze on her.

"Jake, eyes left – no, damn it, right!" Marnie screamed, already running to intercept. What the hell she hoped to do, she had no idea, but Jake was too busy running toward her to notice what was happening.

Something small slammed into her shoulder. Seconds later she felt something hook in her hair. She paused for a nanosecond, then started sprinting toward Jake again. The bad guy blasted off another round of bullets toward Jake, who was running flat out to come between Marnie and the weapon.

Before she had time to think, Marnie took a running jump, knocking Jake over in a tangle of arms and legs. They fell hard, Marnie buried beneath the weight of Jake's huge body.

Dimly she heard another hail of fire, then someone yelling, "I got him." Jake's grip on her elbow was painful as he hauled her upright, his eyes midnight dark as they scanned her face.

"Jesus, Marnie! Are you all right?" He propped her back against his raised knee and searched her face, both visually and with his hands.

Terrible possibilities gripped her mind, including Jake being brave while he bled like a sieve from a million bullet holes. She tried to push his hands away, needing to do a tactile search of
his
body.

"Were you shot?" she demanded, out of breath and terrified. "Are you hit?"

Still holding her, Jake looked over his shoulder as four men wearing jeans and heavy jackets and carrying Uzis raced into the clearing. They pushed two sharpshooters ahead of them. Duchess was with them. She danced around the men before seeing Marnie and raced to her side. She circled Marnie and Jake, growling low in her throat, her tail waving.

Jake turned his head to look at the men as he helped Marnie to her feet. "What the hell is this? A frigging convention?"

"Brothers," she mumbled. Still woefully short of breath and feeling decidedly weird, she locked her spongy knees and managed to hobble upright.

"Derek, Michael, Kane, K-Kyle." It was a good thing Jake was still holding her upper arm.

"Your
brothers?
Well, hell. Saved by the cavalry. Truss the son of a bitch," he called to them, "and keep an eye on the other one. I'll be right there." He let go of her arm and peered into her face. "Sure you're okay?"

"Peach – ahhh—"

Pain.

There was suddenly no room for anything else. She staggered, and then her knees seemed to melt. A ball of fire ripped through her, taking her breath and constricting her muscles. She clenched her eyes shut, swaying until gravity made the decision and she collapsed against the frozen earth, rolling to her side and curling her knees up to the pain.

Oh, God, it hurts.

Through a haze, she heard a mishmash of her brothers' and Jake's voices. Felt Jake's hands on her, then heard his roar of rage. She wanted to tell him not to yell, but it took every ounce of strength she had not to scream herself.

The sound of gunshots reverberated in her head. She panted, panicking when she couldn't draw a deep breath. "I'm suff-o-ca-ting."

"No, you are not," Jake said with awful calm.

She felt his hands on her, but it was as if her body had been injected full of novocaine.

"Just calm down. I have you, Marnie. I have..."

His words became jumbled, distant, confusing. "Jake?" She panicked. "Jake?"

She forced her eyes open. Something warm ran in a ticklish stream down her face. She put a shaking hand up and then looked at her red, sticky, mud-encrusted fingers. "I'm bleeding." Her voice sounded thready, indignant.

Jake knelt beside her, his arm cradling her head and upper body. He wiped her face with fingers that shook. She winced.

And the blood kept coming.

"Look at me. That's right, good girl, keep looking at me." Her glassy eyes stared into his. He saw her focus go, and his heart sped up.

"Here, Marnie. Keep those gorgeous blue eyes open for me." He wanted to draw the sharpness of the pain into himself. Her face below him blurred, and she yelped as his hands involuntarily gripped her harder.

"Keep looking at me, darling. You'll be okay. You have a head wound."

A bullet had skimmed through her hair. Head wounds bled a lot. He
knew
that.
Oh, God
...

She lay heavily across his arm. A small smile curved her pillowy lower lip. "Hmmm...darling?"

"Yeah, darling, sweetheart, love."

"Hmmm. Like th..." Her eyes totally lost focus again. "Jake?" she whispered in a panicky little voice that tore out his heart.

"Right here."

"Hmmm." Marnie squeezed her eyes shut.

"Don't lose consciousness." His voice sounded as scared as he felt.

"Bossy," Marnie slurred. "Just a little b...blood. 'M okay."

"Damnit, I told you not to close your eyes."

"Never been shot before," she said numbly, struggling for breath. "Hurts." She pressed her face against his arm.

Her breathing didn't sound right. Panic? Worse? "I'm sorry, sweetheart. So damned sorry. I can't believe you'd pull such a damn dumb stunt. I meant to talk to you about this lousy habit you have of saving my life."

"Worth...it..."

Moonlight glinted for a moment off something dark and liquid oozing through her jacket. He put pressure on her shoulder, and she tried to withdraw from the pain. "Not...not your...f...fault."

Pain swamped her like a red tidal wave. She clamped her lips together so she wouldn't cry out. Her face lost every vestige of color. "Sorry."

*

Icy sweat bathed his body, and he was numb with terror. Blood soaked the shoulder of her jacket and trickled from the head wound down her temple and the side of her face.

"Brother doc..."

"Which one of you is the doctor?" Jake snarled at the four men who'd come running the second she'd collapsed, stripping off their jackets as they ran.

"Right here."

Jake looked up. He hadn't even noticed the man kneeling on her other side. The younger man was already systematically checking her.

"She's been off her Coumadin for four days," Jake said flatly, lifting her slightly as her brothers bundled her from head to toe in their jackets. He eased her back down. She felt as light and insubstantial as thistledown.

The doctor brother shot him a look, then went back to what he was doing. "Scalp wound, superficial. Here, Kane, press this right here – no, a little to the left – yeah. Hold that. Good thing you have such a hard head, little sis," he said in a completely different tone, then looked at his brothers.

"Her hard head deflected the bullet. It'll bleed, but other than some hair loss, no big deal. Derek, get something to elevate her legs."

Kyle felt her pulse, his lips thinned. "I'm going to open your jacket, poppet. It'll be cold for a minute while I check you out."

Jake squeezed her hand as her brother undid her jacket and checked her shoulder as she lay limp and unresisting. It worried the hell out of him. A second wound...

Terror wrapped icy tentacles around his heart.
Marnie. Marnie
.

"Decreased breathing sounds on this side." Kyle glanced up briefly. They all got it. Her lung was perforated. "Here's the point of entry... Sorry, poppet, stay with me.

"Okay, pal," he told Jake, "you can put the pressure back. Yeah, nice steady pressure ... right here. Good.

"There's deformity in her arm. The bullet must have ricocheted off the clavicle into the humerus. Thank God she has a radial pulse. Clavicle is broken. No, sis, put your hand down, you're all muddy. Why's she covered head to toe in mud? What the hell's going down here?"

The brother standing directly behind Jake spoke up quickly. "There'll be time later, Kyle. Cool it."

Kyle shot a quick, dangerous glance at Jake. "Keep that pressure steady." He carefully checked his sister's back. "No exit," he said grimly.

Jake closed his eyes on a prayer.

Marnie gasped for air like a goldfish out of its bowl.

The brothers paced, their voices a blurred drone. Lost in the terror of losing Marnie, he barely noticed them.

It should have been me. It should have been me.

She was going to die here. Before he could tell her...

"What are you doing here? How did you find us?" he asked as one of the brothers took up another cloth and applied pressure to the wound on her scalp.

"Our father contacted us when she didn't answer her phone," the tallest one said, not looking at Jake as he switched places with Kyle so his brother could check her hips and legs.

Kyle's eyes met those of his brothers and he gave a negative shake of his head.

"We knew the bridges were out." The taller brother hooked Jake's gaze, and Jake knew he was speaking slowly and calmly so as not to scare the shit out of his sister. Jake figured he was scared enough for both of them.

"The weather held us off yesterday. We did a helo drop five hours ago and came looking. The gunshots helped pinpoint your location. Jesus, it's freezing out here. Kane, get a fire going. Derek, radio for help."

"I have an underground setup beneath the cabin." Jake didn't take his eyes off her face. In the moonlight her skin looked almost transparent, her lashes ominously still against her cheeks. "If we can clear some of the rubble, the elevator should be working." He felt manic and frantic, but he wouldn't, by word or deed, let Marnie know that.

"Elevator?"

"Jake's the s-spy king of the universe, Mikey."

"Is he, little one?"

*

She felt Michael on her other side as he took her wrist in his warm hand again. "Fast and thready, Kyle, she's in shock. No surprise there. You better hope to hell you're a
good
guy, Mr. Spy King of the Universe, otherwise the universe won't be big enough for you to hide. What the hell were you thinking involving a woman in whatever the hell all this is about?"

"Don' shout, Mi...don' shout at him, please."

She wanted to tell them that she knew she'd be fine. But she didn't believe it herself. People died from gunshot wounds. Only in the movies did people getup and walk away. "If I die, tell—"

"You are
not
going to die!" Jake ground out, his grip on her hand like a vise. It hurt, and she whimpered. Jake swore. Michael cursed as well. Out of her line of sight she heard the others tossing charred timbers away from the cabin, trying to get to the elevator shaft.

"I was having fun before." Marnie ran her tongue over her dry lips. Her brain buzzed, her mind whirled, her eyes were losing focus, and there didn't seem to be enough air. How could that be? They were outside. There must be plenty of air.

"This...isn't so fun anymore. It...hurts." She looked up with tremendous effort into Jake's face, dirt-streaked, gleaming with sweat, and grave with concern. "Can I ... have some water?"

"No!" five voices shouted in unison.

"I know you're thirsty," Jake told her gently. "We can't take the chance of giving you anything to drink right now. Just keep your eyes open. We'll be down in the lair in a couple of minutes, so just hang in there with me, okay?" His face was chalky, his mouth grim.

She ran her tongue uselessly over her lips again. "Sure."