Operation Willow Quest (28 page)

Willow
struggled against
Tupper’s hold, but he held her securely. “Let Maloney do his job, he’ll be
fine, Willow,”
he said near her ear in an attempt to calm her.

Willow
stared at Del’s chest.
Please be all right,
she whispered
beneath her breath.

The ambulance had been
on standby—a comforting thought—just in case they didn’t manage to stop the hit
man getting off a shot. The paramedics worked furiously on Del, making a huddle that blocked him from
her sight before he was whisked away on a stretcher without her being able to
see him.

Cocooned in a blanket
she had no memory of being wrapped in, she complained as Tate escorted her
toward a car to drive back to the base for a briefing. “I don’t care about the
shooter; I just want to go to the hospital, Tate—why can’t we go there now?”

“It’s standard
procedure; it won’t take long then I’ll take you to the hospital personally, I
promise.”

They sat in the same
conference room they’d used that first day and listened to Agent Graham harp on
about what a huge success the operation had been. She couldn’t help but frown
at that. “Unless of course you were Peter Delaware,” she murmured, just loud
enough to carry to the three marines beside her.

“We now have someone
linked to
Trèago
, and we can proceed with our
investigation,” Agent Graham crowed, almost preening his own feathers.

“So this guy will admit
he was hired by
Trèago
?” Willow asked, suddenly not as sure as Agent
Graham seemed to be.

“We’re not foreseeing
any problems,” he answered, looking irritated by her question.

“Well, I’ve had a
little bit of experience with
Trèago
, and I seem to
remember he was a pretty intimidating employer. The men I saw who worked for
him would no more have turned him in than slit their own throats. You don’t
cross Samuel
Trèago
without ending up dead,” she
warned.

“We’re the FBI, Miss
Sheldon; we
specialise
in interrogation.”

“Interrogation?” she
asked. “I didn’t think the FBI would condone using force to extract information
any more?”

“Of course not, that
would be a violation of civil liberties, you know that Miss Sheldon, but we
have the best trained interviewers in the country, who have been specially
trained.”

“Then I hope you can
preform
miracles because I’ve a feeling you won’t get
anything useful out of this assassin—not if he’s been paid by
Trèago
and values his life,” she added dryly.

“We thank you for
assisting in this operation, Miss Sheldon, you’ve been most cooperative, but
from this point on, it becomes a matter for the FBI, and as a civilian, you
will no longer be needed to partake in further briefings. I’ll have someone
escort you back to your room to collect your belongings. Oh, and Miss Sheldon,
I trust you
realise
you won’t be able to use any of
what’s happened here in one of your exposés.”

His dismissive and
snooty tone irritated her already over-stretched patience. “I think there’s
been enough stories written on FBI bungling—no one seems interested in reading
about them any more,” she snapped, walking from the room, leaving a fuming
silence behind her, and an agent she would definitely not be getting any
off-the-record comments from in the future.

* * * *

Tate and the two marines
came out of the room shortly after, and in silence they walked outside the building
and climbed into Tupper’s big SUV, to allow Willow to get changed and check out of the
motel room she’d spent the last few nights in.

They’d found out from
the hospital, Del
had been taken into surgery and
stabilised
. He would
be moved from observation to a room within the next few hours if everything
continued to improve.

“What do you think it
will mean if this guy won’t talk?”

Tate shrugged. “I don’t
know. They say they have enough to expose the corruption in the prison, so that
solves our problem with
Trèago
. If they pin on a few
more years for all this—it won’t make any difference, he’s already got life. I
don’t care as long as we block this leak that’s allowed the bastard to continue
to stalk us,” he growled.

As they walked into the
hospital, Willow’s
steps faltered slightly as the antiseptic smell seemed to permeate through her
pores, and she felt disorientated and light-headed.

“Maybe we should have a
Doctor look you over anyway, “Tate said, already swinging his dark head around
to search one out as he spoke.

“No,” she said firmly,
“I just need to sit down for a while.”

“It’s just the
adrenalin wearing off; you’ll be okay,” Maloney assured her, putting a hand
under her elbow as they walked the last few steps toward the room the duty
nurse had given them directions to. Willow
was glad for Maloney’s steadying presence as they walked into the room. One
look at Del,
pale and bandaged, was enough to sap what remaining strength she had from her
body.

They sat in a silent
vigil around the bed and waited.

After a while, Tate
stood up and announced quietly he was going to go and check in with Summer, who
thought he was away on a brief mission.

“He’ll be okay; it
looks worse than it really is,” Maloney told her from across the room as he
studied her worried face.

“I hope so. I’m
beginning to think I’m bringing him nothing but bad luck,” she murmured.

Tupper gave a small
snort, and Willow
turned a quizzical glance his way. “What?”

“You’re sure bringing
him something,” he muttered. His gaze remained on his friend’s pale face, but
she could see it was slightly irritated.

“What’s that supposed
to mean?” Willow
demanded.

“In case you haven’t
noticed, the guys a God-damn basket case nowadays.”

“
Tup
,”
Maloney warned lightly.

“Well, she brought it
up,” he pointed out, then lifted his gaze to Willow, pinning her with it across the room.
“He used to be fun, but ever since you came back, he doesn’t do bars, or women,
or anything he used to do. He walks around biting everyone’s head off, and it’s
all because of you. This sounding familiar, anyone?” Willow knew he was referring to when Summer
had “ruined” Tate and put an end to his bad boy days. “You Sheldon women sure
know how to grab a guy where it hurts.”

“I haven’t done
anything to him,” Willow
said, taken back by the outburst.

“You broke him.”

“I
broke
him?”

“He’s
love-sick—something I never thought I’d see happen to Del. Man, the guy was a
legend,” Tupper almost moaned. “It’s like when Tate fell for Summer, all over
again,” he said, shaking his head.

“Shut up, Tupper.” A
voice floated in the quiet room and Willow spun
around to focus on Del,
lying against the crisp white sheets, glaring at his friend.

“It’s true, man, you’re
like a bear with a sore head—you’re no fun to be around any more. It’s
pathetic. If this is what love does to a man—then count me out of ever finding
it,” Tupper muttered, standing up to walk to the door. “Now you’re awake I can
go and get some sleep.”

Willow
listened to Tupper’s
angry footsteps fading away and bit the inside of her lip.

Maloney flashed her a
grin. “Don’t pay any attention to Tupper; he has the attention span of a
two-year-old; he’ll forget what he was raving about by the time he hits the car
park outside,” he promised, then turned back to Del, sending him a nod of
approval. “Glad to see you’re back in the land of the living, buddy; you had me
worried there for a minute.”

“Take more than that to
get you out of paying up on what you owe me from last week’s poker game,” Del grunted.

Maloney chuckled as he
headed for the door, leaving her alone with Del in the quiet room.

“You okay?” Willow asked, nervously.

“I’m okay; what about
you?”

“Me?” she asked,
surprised, “I’m fine, why?”

“You’re acting weird,”
he murmured, wincing as he tried to move his arm.

“It’s been a weird
day.”

“So what happens now,
Sheldon?” he asked.

“They caught the hit
man, and they seem to think they’ll get the information out of him they need,
so I guess it’s over,” she said.

“Not that—what happens
with
us
?”

Willow
sighed, and dropped
her head to stare at the ground between her feet. “I don’t know, Del—let’s wait until
you’re back on your feet before we have this conversation,” she suggested
wearily.

A slight noise made her
lift her gaze and she leapt from her seat. “What are you doing?” she demanded,
even as she saw him pushing the sheets off slowly.

“If you want me on my
feet first, then that’s what you’ll get,” he told her with a groan at the
movement.

“Oh for the love of
God, Delaware!
You just got out of surgery! Stop acting like a bloody man and use your brain.
You’re going to hurt yourself again,” she told him angrily, but the fire died
before the end of the sentence and she was crying like a blubbering idiot.

His hand touched her
back as she dropped her head on the bed beside him and let the stress of the
last few days pour from within her.

“I thought you were
going to die,” she told him, refusing to look at him until she had herself
under control.

“Yeah
I know—I’m sorry I scared you like that, but it’s all okay now. I’ll be good as
new in a day or two,” he said, moving his hand in soothing circles across her
back. “Willow,
I want you to promise me something,” he said softly.

Lifting her head, Willow stared into his
worried frown and bit the inside of her lip as she waited for him to continue.

“Don’t leave until I’m
out of here and we’ve had a chance to sort it out okay?”

Don’t run.
She heard the words in his unspoken message.

“Okay,” she promised.
This is what she wanted, a fresh start. She wanted to change. She would do it
for him, if no one else. He’d saved her life. She owed him at least that much…

* * * *

“You know, I’m not as
stupid as everyone around here thinks I am.”

As she heard the words,
Willow lifted
her head to find Summer watching her cradle the small warm bundle of baby in
her arms in the lounge room. Willow
had been expecting an interrogation ever since coming back to Summer’s place
late the night before. “No one thinks you’re stupid, Sis,” Willow said, shaking her head.

“Fragile, then. I
gather Emily’s the reason I’m being fed this latest bunch of crap about a
sudden mission.”

Willow
kept her gaze fixed
upon the baby in her arms, unable to trust herself to look her sister in the
eye. “You need to take up all that with your husband.”

“Ha! You think I
haven’t tried that already? The man’s like a damn machine when he puts his mind
to it. I thought
you’d
at least be on
my side.”

“I’m always on your
side,” Willow
replied, finally lifting her gaze to rest on her sister’s face steadily. “And
don’t you ever forget it.”

“I’m not helpless.”

“You’re the most
capable woman I know, Sum. I wish I was half as capable as you.”

“Oh
please
, Miss
I’ve-travelled-the-globe-a-zillion-times.”

“I may have travelled
all over the world, but where it counts I’m as clueless as a newborn. Do you
realise
how much I envy your ability to have a normal
relationship?”

“A normal
relationship—are you serious? There hasn’t been anything normal about my
relationship with Tate Maddox since the moment I met him.”

“You’re married, you
love each other, you’re happy…you have a child together…that’s normal.”

“And you can’t have all
that because…” Summer asked warily.

“Because I make a lousy
wife.”

Summer muttered a word
that made Willow
lift an eyebrow in surprise.

“Look at my last
marriage, Sum. Michael ended up staying away from the apartment on purpose; we
messed up a perfectly good relationship by failing miserably at communication
and compromise.”

“You’re
not the same person you were back then, Will. You were young, you and Michael
both had successful, exciting careers—that was just who you both were at the
time.”

“I’m still the same
person. I’m not sure I can change who I am.”

Willow
felt her sister’s eyes
on her, weighing her up. “I think the trick to falling in love with someone is
knowing how to make changes without changing who you are. I don’t think you
have to give up everything—you just have to figure out how to keep the most
important parts and make them work in with your new life.”