Redstone Ever After Read online

  “And wasn’t I thankful it was you instead of the guy with the scythe,” Mac was saying, almost cheerfully despite the fierce gesturing.

  “Weren’t we all.” Sam looked up at him adoringly.

  “Ah, my beauty, if I didn’t belong lock, stock and scuba gear to my darling Emma…”

  “But you do.”

  “I do, indeed. And I don’t want Ian to find a use for one of the more exotic weapons he’s come up with.”

  “And indeed he would,” Sam said with a smile, and full confidence that her mild-mannered husband would do just that. And Draven had no doubt she was right.

  “Josh and Tess?” Mac asked suddenly.

  “You’re not around as much as we are,” Sam said, patting his arm, “or you’d see it as clearly as we do.”

  “But they don’t see it?”

  “Forest for the trees,” Draven said.

  “And a lot of baggage, I imagine.” Mac said. “Elizabeth, and Eric.”

  Sam glanced at both men. “We’ve all had baggage. Not as heavy, but baggage.”

  “Time to jettison it,” Draven said.

  “Then let’s get them out of there so they can.” Samantha put an end to the discussion as they stepped into the shadow of the Hawk V.

  Chapter 22

  “Get them out here while I get the door open. He’ll be expecting her, and maybe him, too.”

  They heard Brown Shirt’s words from just outside the stateroom door. Pinky answered back. They couldn’t hear his words, but the whining, protesting tone was clear; Josh guessed he was tired of being ordered around.

  Josh glanced at Tess, who stood at his elbow. They didn’t have to speak, they’d worked together for so long they knew each other’s cues. He nodded.

  Tess reached up and further tousled hair still tangled from his own fingers. Then she quickly unbuttoned the top two buttons on her blouse. Josh fought down the reaction that kicked through him like a mule as she exposed the lovely swell of her breasts above the lacy red—God help him, Redstone red—bra; so much for predicting what this woman would do.

  “If he’s fool enough,” she murmured, and her use of his own oft-spoken words about an adversary who underestimated him helped him get a grip.

  “Any breathing man would be,” he said, earning a quick glance that held more promise than anything he’d ever seen in his life. Hope sent fire skipping along his veins.

  Pinky’s heavy footsteps sounded outside as he came down the corridor, obviously having given in once more. Ironic, Josh thought, that Pinky had it all backward, and was helping a man who treated him like dirt to hold a man who would never treat him as badly as Brown Shirt did.

  And then there was no time for thoughts, only for doing.

  Pinky paused outside the door. Josh waited a split second longer, picturing the man reaching for the handle. Expecting to find it locked once more.

  He yanked open the door.

  Pinky, thrown off balance by the sudden unexpected move, staggered into the stateroom. He caught himself. Opened his mouth to yelp. Caught sight of Tess.

  A very different expression came across his face as he gaped at smooth, lush curves.

  “Well, now,” Pinky said. And reached out to touch.

  It went against every instinct Josh had not to yank the near-drooling Pinky back and catapult him through the porthole. But he had to trust Tess, had to trust that she could do what needed to be done.

  And already she was doing it; he had the briefest moment to see the beginning. Pinky leaning over, intent on what was revealed by the unbuttoned blouse. She took a couple of steps back, as if to get away from Pinky’s grasping hands. The man followed, lured by that tempting flesh. Josh was behind him, forgotten. And in a split second Josh had the Colt in his hands.

  Simultaneously, Josh heard the sound of the gangway steps being lowered. Brown Shirt, as planned, was focused there, and on the approaching party he was convinced included his prey, at last. In the same instant Tess moved, her knee coming up fast and hard. Josh knew Pinky would be looking at a broken nose or worse. Heard the thud, the crunch.

  Josh gave the man just enough time to scream. Doubled over in shock, Pinky was an easy target for the butt of the weapon. He dropped like a stone.

  Brown Shirt shouted an inquiry to his partner.

  Come on, Josh surged silently as he risked a look into the corridor, come running.

  Pinky moaned.

  Rapid footsteps sounded as Brown Shirt, with an oath audible even back here, started across the main cabin. More footsteps, Josh realized, these from the gangway steps. Even as he heard them so did Brown Shirt; he looked back over his shoulder, torn between his quarry and the captives he already had.

  On the floor behind him, Pinky moved. Josh heard a scrabbling sound and a foul, grunting threat. From the corner of his eye he saw the man’s arm come up. Had to force himself not to turn his attention away from his own ultimate target.

  A single shot echoed in the enclosed space. Followed by a shout of shocked pain and a thud as a heavy body dropped back to the floor. Chalk one up for Tess flashed through Josh’s mind. He’d been right to think there was no one better to have at your side in a fight.

  “What the hell?” Brown Shirt yelled the words furiously. “You idiot—”

  It was now or never.

  Josh stepped out into the corridor. Directly into Brown Shirt’s path. The man’s gun hand was waving the Mac 10 wildly as he rushed forward.

  “Birds of a feather,” Josh said softly, and lifted the Colt.

  Brown Shirt’s eyes widened at the sight of the weapon. He tried to bring his own to bear. Saw he wasn’t going to have time, and pulled the trigger anyway. Several rounds went wild.

  Josh’s single round did not.

  And he savored that stunned look as blood blossomed on the brown shirt.

  Bare seconds later, three of the pillars of Redstone were there, taking in the scene with wry acknowledgment. Draven looked from Josh, and the Colt in his hand, to Tess, and the Kahr in hers as she leaned against the bulkhead wall. He gave a short, sharp nod of approval, then knelt beside the collapsed Brown Shirt.

  “He’ll live, sad to say,” Draven said after a moment.

  “Well,” Sam said with a grin and a glance at Mac, “I don’t know about you, but I feel a bit like the cavalry arriving too late.”

  “But you were the distraction arriving just in time,” Josh said.

  “I had my Redstone drawl down perfectly, too,” Mac said in mock disappointment, but his gaze, as he looked his old friend up and down for reassurance that he was all right, spoke volumes.

  “I’m fine.” Pinky moaned, stirred. “Or at least I will be, as soon as we get this human debris off my airplane.”

  “I’ve got just the guy to handle that,” Draven said. He pulled out his Redstone cell phone, keyed the walkie-talkie. “Beck?”

  “Sir?”

  The voice came not from the speaker, but live and in person from ten feet away as Logan Beck, Reeve Westin and Tony Alvera belted down the corridor. They skidded to a halt next to the collapsed Brown Shirt.

  Draven lifted a brow at the rest of the team that had abandoned their positions; he supposed Rand would be here momentarily, probably after forgoing the stairs and leaping to the tarmac from the roof.

  “We heard shots,” Tony said by way of explanation.

  “Don’t look at me,” Draven said drily. “My barrel’s still cool.”

  The team grinned as one. “You mean, we didn’t get to save the day?” Reeve asked, winking broadly at her boss’s boss.

  “Redstone Security saved the day, all right,” Josh said, lifting the Colt. “By all that planning for the worst-case scenario.” He glanced at Tess, who looked so relieved it almost seemed like she was swaying under the force of it. Josh focused on Draven then. “And you had your bodyguard all along, obviously.”

  “I’ll refrain from pointing out I was right about you needing one.”

  “You
were,” Josh acknowledged. Then, solemnly, he added, “Thank you, John. Again.”

  Draven shrugged off the praise, as always. Then Josh saw his gaze shift, his expression soften visibly as he focused on someone just behind the Redstone Security forces and nodded. Josh leaned forward to look that way.

  St. John.

  Everyone fell silent. And the man who had masked his emotions from the world for years, who had hidden more horrible memories than any of them, for one moment let everything he was feeling show as he looked at his oldest friend. Josh smiled at him. St. John sucked in an audible deep breath. Then he nodded, and shifted his gaze to Draven.

  “Apparently,” Draven said with a glance at Josh, “we’re nothing more than the diversion this guy needed to take back his plane.”

  “We,” Josh said, moving over to slip an arm around Tess. “As usual, I couldn’t have done it without her.”

  “If you’re smart, and I know you are,” Sam said rather archly, “you’ll never try.”

  Draven went back to the order he’d been about to give. “Beck, go talk cop to Deputy Lockner, tell him we have a couple of presents for him. And that we’ll have whatever paperwork he needs well before his bosses figure out enough that he’s in any trouble.”

  “Spoken like a man who understands,” Logan Beck said with a grin as he turned to go; the ex-cop made it clear every day that he couldn’t be happier to be out from under the restrictions of his old job.

  Josh realized then that the cabin of the small Hawk V was jammed with people; Noah and Gabe he’d known were here, but he was stunned to see Ian and Ryan, and even Grace all there, anxious expressions changing to relief.

  “Tess?”

  He said it with puzzlement; even after the worst of crises Tess kept her cool, but Josh belatedly realized something was wrong. She hadn’t spoken at all, but that wasn’t unexpected under the circumstances. At first Tess had been simply leaning against him. He’d liked the feeling, and now that this was over, he was already planning how things would unfold between them. They’d fly somewhere, maybe Redstone Bay, or the resort in Alaska. And they’d talk, until this…thing between them was resolved, one way or another.

  Hopefully, in a way that would let him go on breathing.

  And then he realized she wasn’t just leaning against him, she was sagging. He looked down at her, tensing slightly to hold her. She smiled at him, so oddly it scared him. And then he felt her tremble, almost violently. And she closed her eyes.

  “Tess!”

  Her name ripped from him.

  Sam leapt across the short distance between them. Josh tightened his hold on Tess Machado’s slender, petite body as it went slack in his arms. Sam was there, probing, running her hands over the red shirt, then pulling one away.

  Josh stared at that blood-covered hand, unable to breathe as Sam said the unnecessary words.

  “She’s been hit!”

  Chapter 23

  “One of the wild shots, it looks like.”

  Josh didn’t react to Draven’s comment from the copilot’s seat, where he had temporarily taken up residence. He knew his security chief had the most emergency medical experience of them all, having dealt with injuries on the battlefield, so he had entrusted Tess to him and done the only thing he could do. The thing he did best.

  He flew.

  He was focused utterly and completely on coaxing every last bit of speed out of this plane, praying he hadn’t sacrificed too much on the altar of efficiency. This sleek little craft, this child of his mind and heart, was the only hope to save the life of the woman he’d finally realized meant more to him than any design, any plane or all of Redstone itself.

  Had he realized it too late?

  He couldn’t even allow that thought to take root in his mind or he’d be unable to function. And he had to function better than he ever had because, unlike with Elizabeth’s ugly, inexorable cancer, he had a chance to fight this. And fight it he would, with every ounce of flying skill he possessed, with every bit of performance he could wring out of his own brainchild, and if the damned thing fell apart from the strain afterward, he didn’t care.

  “She’s hanging on.”

  Josh hadn’t even realized St. John had taken over the seat next to him until he spoke. The man was checking instruments, and looking at his Redstone cell phone screen, apparently at weather maps. He tried to focus only on flying, on milking every last ounce out of the sleek jet. Otherwise, his mind kept leaping into the abyss, pondering the bleakness of a life without Tess’s steady support, her wry humor, her blunt honesty. A life without her smile, the sparkle of energy and vivacity in her dark eyes. Without her fierce defense of his time and space, without her skill and finesse with anything airborne to admire, without the constant amazement that he could know anyone as long as he’d known her and still be surprised almost every day by some new, undiscovered facet of her.

  “I know, Josh,” St. John said softly.

  He glanced at the man who had been his good right hand for so long. Saw the knowledge in his eyes, in his expression.

  His own joking observation came back to him, that when his mysterious, haunted right-hand man fell in love, he’d know the world was coming to an end.

  And now his own world was threatening to do just that—come to an end. Because if Tess died, it might as well.

  He was aware that people were clustered in knots in the too-small waiting area. They were all there now; Logan and Rand had caught up, having cleaned up the details back at the small airfield.

  “He’d be a good fit,” Rand was telling Draven, apparently referring to the deputy they’d dumped the aftermath on.

  “And I think he’d be interested,” Logan added, “after seeing how we work. Compared to how he has to, I mean.”

  Josh vaguely registered the conversation, but didn’t react. They had to talk about something, or just sit in grim, dark silence. He suspected they were busy trying to carry on normal conversations to subtly—or not so—convey their lack of worry.

  Nothing to worry about, Tess would be fine, that was what they’d all said. That was what he told himself. Over and over again. He even tried to believe it. He had to believe it because the alternative was unthinkable.

  In the end, it was Gabe Taggert who brought it out in the open. Odd that it would be the ramrod straight ex-naval officer, but then again, when he remembered Gabe’s own history, perhaps it wasn’t so odd after all.

  “You’re on an…interesting path,” Gabe said, sounding tentative, unusual for the decisive captain of the Redstone flagship.

  “Until they come out and tell me she’s all right, I’m not on any path at all.”

  “They will,” Gabe said, sounding more like his usual confident self. “She’s going to make it. She’s a fighter, Josh. Nobody with the kind of nerve to fly the way she does is going to give up. Ever. I knew that the first time I met her.”

  That had been, Josh knew, when Tess had joined in the search for the remains of Gabe’s long-missing wife. And it hit him then just how well Gabe did know this path he was on.

  “Cara,” Josh said, then stopped, not having thought through the tangle of thoughts in his mind.

  “Yes,” Gabe said, apparently reading him easily; he wondered when he’d become such an open book. Although Gabe was Redstone, and he never tried to hide from family.

  “She and your wife,” he began, then stopped, still not quite sure where he was headed, usually a good sign to simply shut up.

  “She was Hope’s best friend,” Gabe said. “And now she’s the woman I love beyond anything I’ve ever known.” He gave Josh a sideways look. “And I fought it every step of the way.”

  Josh flicked a glance at the face of this man who had left one loved career behind when he could no longer force himself to ignore the violation of his own basic principles. He saw nothing but concern and a wry self-knowledge.

  “It was,” Gabe said in a tone that matched his expression, “like falling for Hope’s sister
. By the time I finished fighting that idea, I was in so deep it was all over.”

  Every word Gabe said rang true in Josh’s mind. How often had he told himself Tess was the sister Elizabeth had chosen to make up for the rather awful one she had by blood? How often did the memory of Elizabeth intrude when he caught himself thinking of Tess a little too much or a little too often?

  Gabe shoved a hand through his dark hair, and Josh noted that he automatically started to raise the other hand, as well. Gabe had explained once it was an old, hard-to-break habit, as if he were wearing his officer’s combination cap, to be removed before the gesture and resettled after, precisely an inch and a half above his eyebrows, according to navy regs.

  Yes, Gabe had walked this path before him. Only to make things more complicated than even Gabe’s situation, he hadn’t just fallen in love with his late wife’s best friend.

  He’d fallen in love with one of his own.

  In so deep it was all over….

  Josh had the gut-level feeling he’d been in that deep or deeper for a very long time. He just hadn’t realized it, or allowed himself to acknowledge it for so many complicated reasons. Valid reasons, he thought. Or at least they had been.

  Now, with Tess’s life in the balance, he couldn’t think of a single reason that would stack up against the grim reality that the realization had come too late.

  Nobody with the kind of nerve to fly the way she does is going to give up.

  He repeated Gabe’s words in his head every time he started to wobble. Because he knew it was true, Tess would never give up. And he knew that that kind of unflagging human spirit could work miracles; he’d seen it too many times to deny.

  Tess’s sister, Francie, would arrive shortly. Mac had gone for her in his own Hawk V, saying it was the least he could do since his copious acting skills hadn’t been called for in the end. He’d tried to keep things light, refusing to even acknowledge the possibility that Tess wouldn’t be awake and her intense, brilliant self by morning.

  Josh sat on the standard-issue, hospital-waiting-room chair, wood arms digging into his elbows. He leaned forward, shifting his elbows to his knees, staring down at the busy maroon-and-blue pattern of the industrial-strength carpeting. He thought that if someone really wanted to make a difference to people in dire straits, they should donate comfortable furniture to all hospital waiting areas. And less dizzying flooring.