Zach's Law (18 page)

“Never underestimate the power,” Raven murmured.

“Of women?” Kelsey asked, because he didn’t know Zach as well as the others did.

“Of love,” Josh told him.

“Oh. That old thing,” Kelsey murmured, and followed the others to their vantage point on the hill.

   Any old-fashioned dragon slayer would have found the end of the battle something less than rousing, but none of those involved were disappointed. They were all aware that this battle hadn’t ended with a whimper but with something quiet and gallant.

Teddy joined Zach in the clearing where not a single weapon had been fired, and both looked at the villain who lay sprawled on his side, snoring softly. Against his will, Zach had to smile.

Looking up at him gravely, Teddy said, “Sometimes the dragon lives. Life’s like that.”

And after a moment Zach said, “I guess it is, at that.”

The semi did indeed hold the shipment of arms, and with the sleeping men bound along with the two others just in case, a brief meeting was held alongside the vehicles.

Lifting a brow at the others, Kelsey said, “My boss kind of figured all of you would be in on the finish. In that event, he said I was to tell you that you’d all be called on to testify if the marshals found you here.”

Dryly, Zach said, “He’s just avoiding me.”

“Of course he is. But it’s true, nonetheless.”

Nodding, Zach said, “Teddy and I’ll take the Porsche, then.”

Josh looked at Kelsey. “You can claim the van as being your transportation up here. It’s registered in a phony name, anyway—just your style.”

“Yeah,” Kelsey said blandly, “we federal types do dumb things like that.”

Josh ignored that. “The rest of us can hitch a ride out with Rafferty.”

They all looked up as—right on cue—the thumping roar of an army helicopter neared.
Zach took Teddy’s hand, said, “See you back in New York,” to the others, and headed off toward Raven’s car.

In her husband’s ear, Raven said, “Do you think—?”

Josh was watching them leave and said, “I don’t know. I’ve a feeling that fight isn’t over yet.”

“She’s tough,” Raven reminded him. “I don’t think she’ll give up easily.”

“I hope not,” Josh said. “I hope not.”

   They drove straight through to Denver, Zach handling the fiery little Porsche with precision. Teddy’s bags had been transferred, and she still didn’t know if Zach meant to put her on a plane alone to Boston.

It was late when they arrived in Denver, and the first thing he did was to take her to a doctor. Teddy protested in vain, finally submitting when he calmly promised to have her various wounds checked out if he had to take her to a
hospital emergency room. The doctor seemed to know him, asked no questions at all about Teddy’s arm or about the state of her wrists. He merely cleaned and bandaged her wounds, gave her a shot to guard against infection, and told Zach to drop in again sometime.

Then they went to a hotel, and Teddy still didn’t know what he intended to do. She was afraid to ask.

“A real shower,” she said with forced lightness after exploring the roomy suite. Zach was standing by the window, very still; she didn’t know if he was with her or not. “Hey, I thought doctors were supposed to report gunshot wounds.”

Zach stirred and turned to look at her. “He’s a friend. He knew that if it was something he’d need to report, I would have told him.”

For a moment Teddy couldn’t move. There was something in Zach’s eyes that almost broke her heart. “You’re going to send me away,” she whispered.

“Your sister needs you, remember?” He
shrugged out of his jacket and tossed it over a chair, then removed the shoulder holster and placed his gun beside the jacket. His voice was even and calm. “There’ll be a car waiting for you in Boston. A replacement for the one I … drowned.”

“Live with me.” Her voice was still, stark. “Let me live with you. Anywhere, it doesn’t matter.”

“Don’t, Teddy.”

“Don’t what?” Her eyes felt hot, and there was an awful tightness in her chest. “Don’t fight for my happiness? I have to, Zach. I love you.”

“You’ll get over it,” he said, very low.

“Will you?”

He crossed the room to her and pulled her into his arms, holding her tightly against him for a long moment. “Don’t talk about later,” he said finally, roughly. “I don’t want to hear about later.” When he lifted his head, he was calm, but his eyes were dark and strained.

Teddy drew a deep breath, ignoring the
aching tightness around her heart. Pushing him now, she knew, would do nothing except ruin what might well be their last hours together—and she wasn’t willing to do that. But she wasn’t beaten. Not yet.

“All right.” She conjured a smile for him. “Why don’t you take a shower while I call room service. We can relax for a while. Can’t we?”

They could. For Teddy, it seemed odd to be with Zach with no shadow of danger hanging over them. And when she thought about it, she felt a faint shock at the realization that she had known him less than a week. A lifetime of knowledge and emotions in less than a week.

And yet she didn’t feel hurried, confused, or disoriented by the rush of events and feelings. She felt—had felt throughout the past days—that she was standing on a solid base of certainty. She knew what she felt.

A week, a month, a year—it didn’t matter. She loved Zach.

Zach knew only too well what was behind the tight feeling in his chest. It had happened before, when he had seen her wound, her blood. When he had heard her scream and known she was in Ryan’s cruel hands. His fear for her, the fear of losing her, had gripped his heart like a huge hand, squeezing in agony.

And now he knew he was going to lose her. He would put her on a plane in the morning, bound for Boston and her family and her normal life, in which he wouldn’t fit.

She was talkative, stubborn, innately tough, humorous. She had the soft eyes of a doe that would pull things from inside him, things he didn’t even know were there; and then those soft eyes turned amber with a cat’s enigmatic mystery and lighted fires of need inside him. But hers was a normal life, unshadowed by danger, where the only guns were dart pistols to subdue simple four-legged animals.

His life, his very nature, was shaped by danger. He carried a gun more often than not, and his career was protecting an international
corporation, its employees and, particularly, its charismatic leader from the various dangers that were an almost daily occurrence. He talked little, was secretive, stubborn, occasionally explosive.

They were both stubborn—not the best trait to have in common. But within a very few days something had happened between them. Zach told himself that he knew what it was. Not love but something fleeting, born in difficult and unusual circumstances. Something that would never, could never, last.

Teddy couldn’t love him.

Bleakly, he knew it would be worse this time. He was going to lose something he had never lost before, something vitally important to him. And it would be his own action that would send her out of his life. It had to be that way. A clean break while she still looked at him with no fear in her eyes.

Because if he waited, hoped, and then saw that fear, it would tear him apart.

With an effort of will that had never before
been so difficult, Zach pushed it all away. He didn’t want to think about later. Not now. Only when he had to.

   Teddy studied the room-service menu while listening to water running in the bathroom. Zach was shaving first, she realized, and she heard the shower begin as she called room service. She ordered a meal for them but requested that it be sent up in an hour and a half. Then she shed clothing erratically on her way to join Zach in the shower.

The small room was fogged with steam, the glass shower stall a misted barrier between them. Teddy just stood and gazed at him for a moment, intrigued by the hazy outline of his big body as he moved in the stall. And she felt a sudden onrush of her inner storm, sweeping toward her, over her. It was no longer a pain, as it had once been, but the strength and power of it was dizzying.

Need. A hot, gripping need for his touch, his
closeness. A driving urge to touch him herself, so forceful that her hands reached out, fumbling, for the shower door without her conscious volition. And when the hot moisture of the stall closed around her, it was as if she had stepped bodily into the center of that surging tropical storm.

Zach turned, his eyes sweeping over her. “You’ll get the bandages wet,” he murmured.

“You’re a smart man—I’m sure you’ll think of something.” Her voice was husky.

He stepped closer, easing her body against his, and his mouth covered hers in a deep, possessive kiss. “What I’m thinking of right now,” he said against her lips, “isn’t bandages.”

But he did think of them, of course. One bandage covered her left arm from elbow to shoulder, and both wrists were bound. Which meant that it was almost impossible to keep them all dry. Almost impossible.

Being a man of many talents, Zach managed the impossible. He used his own large body to keep the majority of the spray off her, yet even
managed to wash her hair. He was in an unusual mood, she thought fleetingly, teasing, laughing softly. His eyes clear but dark and curiously still. He handled her body with familiarity, and yet she had the feeling that he was … memorizing her. It made her throat ache.

Astonishingly, when they emerged from the shower stall, her bandages were still dry.

But the king-size bed got quite damp, because neither of them wanted to waste time with towels.

   Room service came and went; darkness fell outside. Room service came and went again. They dressed in the absolute minimum to answer the door but otherwise remained naked and in bed. And they made love. Just as the days before had intensified their time together, so did these hours intensify their loving.

With every instinct she could claim, Teddy knew that Zach cared for her, but she knew
also that he intended to send her away, out of his life. He wouldn’t even wait, give them a chance, and she knew why.

A single lamp by the bed provided the only light, and it was late when Teddy stirred at his side and lifted her head. She was on her stomach beside him, the covers drawn up to his waist and over her hips. She looked at him for a long time, knowing that he was awake, even though his eyes were closed. It had been a long day, with a sleepless night before that for him, yet neither of them could sleep.

And Teddy was racking her brain, trying desperately to come up with something that would convince him how sure her feelings were. “Zach? If—if you did believe I loved you, would there be a place in your life for me?”

He opened his eyes, and one hand began toying with her vivid hair. “Let it go, honey,” he murmured.

“I could never be afraid of you.”

“Teddy—”

With everything inside her tight, her voice
emerged tense and strained. “Has it occurred to you that I’ve thrown away every shred of pride I’ve got? I’ve never done that, Zach. But I don’t care. Just give us a month, can you do that? And if after that you want me to go—”

“No,” he said softly, closing his eyes again. “I can’t do that, Teddy.”

“For my sake or yours?”

“Both. For both of us.”

She traced the scar over his ribs with trembling fingers. Quietly, despairingly, she said, “You’re afraid of something that’s never going to happen. I’ll stop breathing before I stop loving you.”

Zach had never wanted anything in his life more than he wanted to believe her. But he was locked inside himself, alone in the way he’d always been alone, and the only thing to keep him company there was the cold dread he felt at losing her.

He pulled her closer to his side, keeping his eyes closed because he didn’t know what she
might see in them. And he felt her lips feathering along the scar on his cheek.

“You said I belonged to you,” she whispered.

“For a while,” he said. “Just for a while.”

Teddy scooted down and rested her cheek on his chest, staring with burning eyes and seeing only an emptiness inside her. He was going to send her away. And she was going to go. Only the passage of time would convince him, if even that would. She didn’t know if she’d be able to stand it. But she wasn’t ready to give up entirely, not yet. Not while the faintest hope remained.