Then, suddenly, it was quiet except for a few scattered shots, and they were abruptly halted, too. Rachel lay on the floor, hardly daring to breathe, the acrid smell of burned gunpowder filling her nostrils and even her mouth. Kell put his hand on her arm, his black eyes drifting over her pale features as if he would burn her into his memory.
"Hey!" a deep voice roared. "Rachel, are you in there?"
Her lips trembled, and tears suddenly blurred her eyes. "It's Rafferty," she whispered, then lifted her head to call, "John! Is it all right?"
"Depends," the answer came. "These bastards here don't think it's all right."
Kell slowly climbed to his feet and pulled Rachel to hers. "He sounds like my kind of man."
Rachel felt like the survivor of a shipwreck as she walked out on the porch with Kell supporting her. Grant and Jane followed, with Jane dabbing at the cut on Grant's cheek, crying a little as she fussed at him. Without the arm around her waist, Rachel was sure she wouldn't have been able to stand.
She gave a ghostly cry when she saw three of the geese lying in the yard, blood on the white of their feathers, but there was no way she could make a sound when she saw Joe lying on his side at the edge of the porch. Kell turned her into his arms, pressing her face into his shoulder.
Big John Rafferty, armed with a hunting rifle and surrounded by his men, who were likewise armed, herded about fifteen men before him. Rafferty's eyes were fierce and narrow under his dark brows as he prodded a slim, gray-haired man before him. "We heard the shooting and came to see what was going on," John drawled. "I don't like riffraff shooting at my neighbor."
Charles Dubois was white with rage, his eyes fastened on Sabin. Beside him was Noelle, her beautiful eyes full of boredom.
"It isn't over, Sabin," Dubois hissed, and Kell gently put Rachel aside, handing her over to Grant. Kell had business to attend to, and explaining it to the law, then keeping it quiet would take some doing.
"It's over as far as you're concerned," he said briefly.
Beside Charles, Noelle smiled her slow, sleepy smile, then suddenly wrenched free; because she was a woman, the cowhand behind her hadn't been holding her securely. And, somehow, she had a gun in her hand, a small, ugly revolver.
Rachel saw it, and everything moved in slow motion. With a cry she tore free of Grant's arm, hurling herself toward Kell. A man grabbed for Noelle's arm, and the pistol exploded just as Rachel hit Kell, knocking him away. She cried out again at the burning pain in her side; then there was only blackness filling the world.
Chapter Thirteen.
Sabin leaned against the wall in the hospital waiting room, his nostrils filled with the sharp smell of antiseptic and his dark face cold and remote, even though there was screaming hell in his eyes. Behind him were Jane and Grant, waiting with him. Jane was huddled over, her expressive face pale and full of misery; Grant prowled the confines of the room like some great cat.
No matter how he tried, Kell couldn't get the picture of Rachel, lying on the ground awash in her own blood, out of his mind. She had looked so small and fragile, her eyes closed and her face paper white, crumpled like a child's discarded doll, one slender hand lying palm up. He'd fallen to his knees beside her, oblivious to the scuffle and shots going on behind him, and a low, rough sound had exploded from his chest. Her name had echoed in his mind, but he hadn't been able to voice it.
Then, incredibly, her eyes had opened. She was dazed and in pain, but those clear, clear eyes had fastened on him as if he were her lifeline, and her trembling lips had fashioned his name. It wasn't until then that he'd realized she was alive. Seeing her take the bullet meant for him had been a nightmare come true, and he still hadn't recovered. He didn't expect ever to recover.
Yet he had managed to rip her clothing away from the ugly wound in her side and apply rough first aid, with Jane kneeling beside him and helping. Grant had taken over with the others, doing what was necessary, making certain that no hint of what had happened was leaked.
Dubois was dead, Noelle critically wounded and not expected to survive. Ironically, it had been Tod Ellis who had shot them. During the ensuing scuffle after Noelle had shot Rachel, Ellis had pulled free and grabbed a rifle. His motives were murky. Perhaps he had wanted to get rid of Dubois so no one would know the extent to which Ellis had helped him; perhaps, in the end, he hadn't been able to stomach what he'd done. Or perhaps it had been because of Rachel. Sabin could identify with that last reason; he could gladly have killed Dubois and that treacherous bitch with his bare hands for what they'd done to Rachel.
Honey Mayfield had been fetched to take care of Joe, and she thought he would make it. Rachel would need something, someone to hold on to, even if it was just a dog. Her house had been so badly damaged that it would take weeks to restore it; her pets had been shot, her life turned upside down, she herself wounded, and the man she loved was the cause of it all. Cold, piercing agony filled his chest. He'd nearly cost her her life, when he would have died himself rather than have her suffer this. He'd known the danger, yet he'd stayed, unable to tear himself away from her. This once he'd let his heart overrule his mind, and it had almost killed her. Never again. God in heaven, never again.
He would stay only until she was out of surgery and he knew she would be all right; there was no way he could leave until he knew, until he'd seen her again and touched her. But then he and Grant would have to leave. The situation was critical; he had to get to Washington before the news of this leaked back and the traitor, or traitors, could cover their tracks.
"Jane," he said quietly, not turning around. "Will you stay?"
"Of course," she responded without hesitation. "You know you didn't have to ask."
It had been all he could do to get the local authorities to cooperate; if it hadn't been for one of the deputies, a man named Phelps, who knew Rachel, the whole thing would have blown sky-high. But Phelps had known what to do, and he'd done some long, hard talking to get the lid put on this. Rafferty had guaranteed the silence of his men, and Kell doubted that there was a one of them who would dare cross Rafferty.
The surgeon entered the waiting room, his lined face tired. "Mr. Jones?"
Kell had identified himself as Rachel's husband and signed the release forms for her to be treated to speed things up. Legality be damned. Every minute had meant the loss of more blood for her. He straightened away from the wall, his entire body taut. "Yes?"
"Your wife is doing fine. She's in recovery now. The bullet nicked her right kidney. She lost a lot of blood, but we got some back in her, and her condition is stabilizing. I had doubts about saving the kidney, but there was less damage than I'd anticipated. Barring complications, I don't see any reason she won't be home in about a week."
The relief was so great that all he could do was croak, "When can I see her?"
"Probably in about an hour. I'm going to keep her in ICU overnight, but it's just precautionary. I don't think that kidney's going to start bleeding again, but if it does, I want her there. I'll have a nurse come for you when they get her moved."
Kell nodded and shook the doctor's hand; then he stood rigidly, unable to relax even now. Jane came to stand beside him, slipping her hand into his bigger one and squeezing it comfortingly. "Don't tear yourself apart over this."
"It was my fault."
"Really? When were you put in charge of the world? I must have missed the headlines."
He sighed wearily. "Not now."
"Why not now? If you don't snap out of this you're not going to be in any shape to do what needs doing."
She was right, of course. Jane might not get where she was going by the same route the rest of the world would take, but in the end she was usually right on the money.
When at last they let him see Rachel, he was braced for the shock; he'd seen too many wounded people not to know that the paraphernalia of hospitals often made it seem worse. He knew about the machines that would be hooked up to her, monitoring her vital signs, and he knew there would be tubes running into her body. But nothing could have prepared him for the blow of walking into the room and then she opened her eyes and looked at him.
Incredibly, a weak smile spread over her bloodless lips, and she tried to hold out her hand to him, but her arm was anchored to the bed with tape, while an IV needle fed a clear liquid into her vein. For a moment Kell was frozen in place, and his eyes closed on the burning sensation that filled them. It was almost more than he could do to walk around the bed and lift her other hand to his cheek.
"It... isn't that bad," she managed, her voice almost soundless. "I heard... the doctor... say so."
God, she was trying to reassure him! He choked, rubbing her hand against his temple. He'd have given his own life to have spared her this, and he was the cause of it. "I love you," he muttered hoarsely.
"I know," she whispered, and went to sleep. Sabin hung over her bed for several more minutes, memorizing every line of her face for the last time. Then he straightened, and his face settled into its usual hard, blank mask. Walking briskly from the room and down the hall to where Grant and Jane waited, he said tersely, "Let's go."
Rachel walked the beach as she did every afternoon, her eyes on the sand as she automatically looked for shells. Joe roamed in front of her, periodically coming back as if to check on her, then going off on his own pursuits again. For weeks after she'd collected him from Honey, Joe had been almost paranoid about letting her out of his sight, but that stage had long passed. For Joe, it was as if the events of the summer had never happened.
It was early in December, and she wore a light jacket to protect her from the cool wind. The fall quarter at the college in Gainesville was finished except for the final exams, but she had enough to keep her busy. She'd worked like a Trojan in the months since July, finishing her manuscript well ahead of schedule and immediately diving into another one. There had been the class to teach, and the increasing number of tourists after the slow days of broiling summer heat had kept the two souvenir shops doing a booming business, which meant she had to drive down at least twice a week, sometimes three times.
The scar on her right side was the only reminder of what had happened in July. That, and her memories. The house had been repaired, new Sheetrock hung and painted because the damage had been too great to simply plaster over. The windows had new frames, and she had a new light fixture in the living room, as well as new furniture and new carpeting, because she'd given up hope of ever getting the glass out of the old. The house looked normal, not as if anything had ever happened that had taken weeks to repair.
Her recovery had been uneventful, and relatively short.
Within a month she had been going about her normal activities, trying to salvage some of the vegetables in the garden, which had become overgrown from neglect. Still, the pain from her wound had given her some idea of what Kell had gone through exercising his leg and shoulder to regain his mobility, and it staggered her.
She hadn't heard from him, not a word. Jane had stayed with her until she was released from the hospital, and had relayed the information that things had gone well in Washington. Rachel didn't know if Jane knew more but wasn't saying, or if that was all she'd been told. Probably the latter. Then Jane had left, too, to collect the twins and rejoin Grant at the farm. By now she would be round with pregnancy. For a time Rachel had thought she might be pregnant, too, from that last time Kell had taken her, but it had turned out to be a false alarm. Her system had simply gone awry from shock.
She didn't even have that. She had nothing but her memories, and they never left her alone.
She had survived, but it was only that: survival. She had gotten through each day without finding any joy in it, though she hadn't expected joy. At best, she would eventually find peace. Maybe.
It was as if part of her had been torn away. Losing B.B. had been terrible, but this was worse. She had been young then, and perhaps she hadn't been as capable of loving as deeply as she was now. Grief had matured her, had given her the depth of feeling with which she loved Kell. There wasn't a minute of the day that she didn't miss him, that she didn't live with pain because he wasn't there. She couldn't even find out about him from Jane; no information was available on Kell Sabin, ever. He had returned to his gray world of shadows and been swallowed up by them, as if he'd never been. Something could happen to him and she would never know.
That was the worst, the not knowing. He was there, but unreachable.
Sometimes she wondered if she'd dreamed it, that he'd come to her in the hospital and bent over her with his heart in his eyes as she'd never seen him before and whispered that he loved her. When she had awoken again she had expected to see him, because how could a man look like that and then walk away? But he had done exactly that. He'd been gone.
Sometimes she almost hated him. Oh, she knew all his reasons, but when she thought about it, they just didn't seem good enough. What gave him the right to make decisions for her? He was so damn arrogant, so certain that he knew best, that she could have shaken him until his teeth rattled.
The fact was that she had recovered from her wound, but she wasn't recovering from losing Kell. It ate at her day and night, taking away her joy in living and extinguishing the light in her eyes.
She wasn't pining away she was too proud to let herself do that but she was merely existing in limbo, without plans or anticipation. Walking the beach, staring out at the incoming waves, Rachel faced the fact that she had to do something. She had two options: she could try to reach Kell, or she could do nothing. To simply give up, to do nothing, went against her grain. He had had time to change his mind and come back, if he'd been going to, so she had to accept that he wasn't going to do it... not without incentive. If he wouldn't come to her, she'd go to him.
Just making that decision made her feel better than she had in months, more alive. She called to Joe, then turned and walked briskly up the beach toward her house.
She had no idea how to reach him, but she had to start somewhere, so she called telephone information to get the number of the agency in Virginia. That was easy enough, though she doubted it would be that simple to get put through to Kell. She called, but the operator who answered the phone denied that anyone by that name worked there. There was no listing for him. Rachel insisted on leaving a message, anyway. If he just knew she had called, perhaps he'd call back. Maybe curiosity wouldn't let him ignore the message.
But days went by and he didn't call, so Rachel tried again and received the same answer. There was no record of a Kell Sabin. She began contacting all the people she had done business with years ago when she was a reporter, asking for advice on how to get through to someone protected by the secrecy of the intelligence network. She sent messages to him through five different people, but had no way of knowing if any of them actually reached him. She continued to call, hoping that eventually the operator would get so frustrated that she'd hand the message on to someone.
For a month she tried. Christmas came and went, as well as the New Year celebrations, but the focus of her life was on somehow contacting Kell. It took a month for her to admit that either there was no way of getting a message to him, or he'd gotten them and still hadn't called.
To give up again, after trying so hard, hurt almost more than she could bear. For a while she'd had hope; now she had nothing.
She hadn't let herself cry much; it had seemed pointless, and she had really tried to pick herself up and keep going. But that night Rachel cried as she hadn't cried in months, lying alone in the bed she'd shared with him, aching with loneliness. She had offered him everything she had and was, and he'd walked away. The long night hours crawled by, and she lay there with her eyes wide and burning, staring at the darkness.
When the phone rang the next morning she still hadn't slept, and her voice was dull when she answered.
"Rachel?" Jane asked hesitantly. "Is that you?"
With an effort Rachel roused herself. "Yes. Hello, Jane, how are you?"
"Round," Jane said, summing it up in one word. "Do you feel like coming up for a visit? I warn you, I have ulterior motives. You can chase the boys while I sit with my feet up."
Rachel didn't know how she could bear to see Jane and Grant so happy together, surrounded by their children, but it would have been small of her to refuse. "Yes, of course," she forced herself to reply.
Jane was silent, and too late Rachel remembered that nothing got by Jane. And being Jane, she went right to the heart of the matter. "It's Kell, isn't it?"
Rachel's hand tightened on the receiver, and she closed her eyes at the pain of just hearing his name spoken. So many people had denied his existence that it stunned her for Jane to bring up the subject. She tried to speak, but her voice broke; then suddenly she was weeping again. "I've tried to call him," she said brokenly. "I can't get through. No one will even admit that they know him. Even if they're giving him my messages, he hasn't called."
"I thought he'd give in before now," Jane mused.
By that time Rachel had gotten herself under control again, and she apologized to Jane for crying all over her. She bit her lip, promising herself that it wouldn't happen again. She had to accept his loss and stop mourning.
"Look maybe I can do something," Jane said. "I'll have to work on Grant. Talk to you later."
Rachel hung up the phone, but she didn't let herself dwell on what Jane had said. She couldn't. If she got her hopes up again only to have them dashed, it would destroy her.
Jane went in search of Grant, and found him in the barn, working on the tractor. It was cold, but despite the chill he was working in only his shirt sleeves, and they were rolled up to his elbows. Two chubby little boys with white-blond hair and amber eyes, snugly bundled against the chill, played at his feet. Grant had started taking them out with him, now that she was so big with pregnancy that it was hard for her to chase after two rambunctious toddlers.
When he saw her he straightened, a wrench in his hand. Swiftly his gaze went over her, and despite her bulk a certain gleam entered his eyes.
"How do I get in touch with Kell?" she asked, getting right to the point.
Grant looked wary. "Why do you want to get in touch with Kell?"
"For Rachel."
Consideringly, Grant eyed his wife. Kell had had his private phone number changed soon after he'd returned home, and Grant had made certain Jane hadn't discovered it since then. It was too dangerous for her to know things like that; she had a positive genius for attracting trouble.
"What about Rachel?"
"I just talked to her. She was crying, and you know Rachel never cries."
Grant looked at her in silence, thinking. Not many women would have done what Rachel had. She and Jane weren't ordinary women, and though they went about things differently, it was the basic truth that they were both strong women. Then he looked down at the little boys playing happily in the hay, crawling over his feet. Slowly a grin cracked his hard face. Kell was a good man; he deserved some of this happiness.
"All right," he said, putting the wrench aside and leaning down to scoop the twins into his arms. "Let's go into the house. I'll put the call through. There's no way in hell I'm letting you get his number."
Jane stuck her tongue out at him, but followed him to the house with a big grin on her face.
Grant didn't take any chances; he made her wait in the next room while he made the call. When he heard the line ringing he called her, and she raced in to grab the receiver from his hand. It took three more rings before the phone was picked up on the other end and a deep voice said, "Sabin."
"Kell," she said cheerfully. "This is Jane."
There was dead silence for a moment, and she stepped into the breach. "It's about Rachel."
"Rachel?" His voice was guarded.
"Rachel Jones," Jane said, rubbing it in. "Don't you remember her? She's the woman in Florida"
"Damn it, you know I remember. Is something wrong?"
"You need to go see her."
He sighed. "Look, Jane, I know you mean well, but there's no point in talking about it. I did what I had to do."
"You need to go see her," Jane repeated.
Something in her voice got through to him, and she heard the sudden sharpness that edged into his tone. "Why? Is something wrong?"
"She's been trying to get in touch with you," Jane said evasively.
"I know. I got the messages."