Kane (25 page)

Voice rough, he said, “I thought I told you to wait for the all clear.”

“The fighting stopped. That's clear enough for me.”

“But you might—”

“I might what?” she asked, pausing as she came even with him in the dim room.

He made no answer, couldn't have if his life had depended on it. What he had been about to say was that she might have been hurt. The mere idea of her catching a stray bullet or getting in the way of a cretin like the bodyguard made him feel sick to his stomach. He'd known he hated the possibility, just not how much.

“Nothing,” he muttered, and motioned for her to go ahead of him back down the hall to her son's room.

Nevertheless, he reached out to halt her at the bedroom door while he checked to be sure there was no other guard. The only thing he could see in the pastel green glow of a night-light was a small mound in the
single bed pushed against one wall. A very small mound.

At his signal, Regina went straight to the sleeping boy and pulled back the covers. She sat down on the bed and rolled him toward her. She made a hissing sound of mingled anger and pain.

The boy was limp, pale, totally unresponsive. Kane felt as if a giant fist had slammed into his gut. He stepped forward, put his hand on the small, thin neck, felt for a pulse. A second later, he let out his breath in sharp relief. The boy's skin was warm. A light but regular pulse beat beneath it.

In quiet tones, Kane asked, “Is he always such a heavy sleeper?”

She shook her head in an emphatic negative. “I tried to tell you how it would be.”

So she had. The boy was drugged. It had seemed a minor point when she had mentioned it earlier. As he saw the effects, it was minor no longer.

For a tense instant, Regina's eyes, limitless pools luminous with unshed tears, met his in the gloom. Then her gaze slid away as if she refused to let him see, much less share, her anguish. He wanted to share it, he discovered, needed to join her in it because it was a part of her, needed desperately to take it from her in any way possible. Stunned by the insight, he stood watching her.

She spun away from him. Moving with quick competence, she found jeans, a sweatshirt, socks, sneakers, then stuffed them into a kid's bright-colored backpack. She handed these things to Kane, who swung the short strap over one shoulder. Then she rolled the boy in
the bedspread that covered him and hefted him into her arms.

It went against the grain with Kane to let her carry the sleeping child, but he needed to run interference until they were in the clear. He checked the hall, got a high sign from Luke at its far end, then motioned Regina forward. They moved toward the living room. Luke ghosted over to join them there. Seconds later, they were at the front entrance. Kane transferred his weapon to his left hand, then reached out to open the door. At the same time, he instinctively reverted to courtesy, stepping to one side so that Regina, a woman with a burden, could go ahead of him.

The door swung open under his hand, would have crashed into him if he hadn't leaped back. Light flared in blue-white brilliance as the living room chandelier came on. In that first second of blindness, Kane moved without thinking, dropping the backpack he held to leave his hand free, putting himself between Regina and the source of danger. Half-crouched, shoulder to shoulder with Luke, he faced the door.

The man who stood there was Gervis Berry. Kane had seen enough pictures of the square, burly funeral services executive to recognize him at a glance. If that wasn't enough, the small pistol in the man's fist, pointed straight at his belly, represented convincing evidence.

“Look what we have here,” Berry said with snide jocularity. “If it isn't somebody making off with my boy.”

“Regina's son, the way I heard it,” Kane answered as he straightened slowly, preparing for a less physical form of combat.

“You think maybe it was a virgin birth?” The other man chuckled at his own mordant wit.

“I know you had nothing to do with it.”

Berry's expression turned ugly. “She told you that, did she? I guess it means she's gone over to your side, then. You being Benedict?”

“That's right.” Kane's voice was curt, his gaze watchful.

“Thought so. Wonder how this method of influencing a witness will set with a jury.”

“Witness?”

Berry gestured toward Regina with a careless wave of the weapon in his hand. “I figure she's traded what she knows for your help here. But maybe that's not all she's trading. Maybe she's still swapping personal service, the kind she put out on my account.”

“Gervis!”

That angry yet unsurprised exclamation from Regina would have condemned her even if she hadn't as good as admitted the charge already. Even as he recognized that, he saw something else. She had stepped from behind him, was deliberately moving forward with the boy in her arms to draw the attention of the man with the gun. She must figure Berry wouldn't fire at her. Kane wasn't so sure. His stomach knotted as he saw the pistol barrel swing toward her.

“Don't sound so shocked,” Berry sneered, watching her. “You think I shouldn't talk like that because we're family? Well, I thought so, too, and now look what you're doing, siding against me, going behind my back. What kind of relative does things like that?”

“The same kind who used my son to make me do what you want, which is no kind,” she answered in
low virulence. “We're not family, never have been, never will be. And I'm glad, do you hear me? I didn't like what you wanted me to do when all this started, and now I hate you for it.”

Berry jerked as if she had hit him. “Bullshit. You don't mean it.”

“I do mean it,” she declared, her eyes flashing green sparks. “Do anything more to harm my son or take him from me, and I'll kill you.”

“You're not fooling anybody, baby,” he said on a nasty laugh. “This isn't about any kid. What happened? Benedict here better at taking care of you than me, especially in bed?”

“No!”

Kane hardly knew what got to him more, the accusation or the denial. He moved forward a quick step, intent on drawing Berry's fire toward himself again. “Could be she's sick of both of us and looking out for herself for a change. You thought of that?”

“Yeah, sure, like a cheap whore,” Berry said as he wheeled in Kane's direction.

Kane lunged the instant the pistol's aim cleared Regina. His fist connected in a hard right to the chin with every ounce of his outrage and power behind it.

Berry fell backward into the hall. He hit the floor on his backside. A sharp report rang out and the gun in his hand spat a red streak.

Something tugged at Kane's waistline, spun him around. Then Luke was hurtling past him, flinging himself on Berry. Luke ripped the weapon from the other man's fist and laid it alongside his head in a short, hard rap. Berry went still. Crouching over him,
Luke looked up at Kane with his face set in taut concern.

Kane knew what his cousin was asking. He was hit; he could feel a numb spot along his side and the creep of warm wetness at his waistline above the belt. Berry's handgun must have been small caliber, however, for he didn't think the damage was major. Anyway, there was no time to think about it, much less discuss it. The sound of the shot could bring more company down on them than they wanted or needed.

He stooped to pick up the backpack with the boy's clothes that he'd dropped, then clamped it against his side to help conceal and control the bleeding. Grabbing Regina's elbow to make sure she kept close, he jerked his head at Luke. “Let's get out of here.”

The trip to the airport seemed to take forever, the preflight checks and preparation longer still. Finally, they were airborne, climbing high into the night sky. They rose through a fluffy cotton mattress of clouds, then banked in a sweeping curve that would take them on a southern course. At last, they leveled off. Kane leaned back in the copilot's seat and closed his eyes.

His side hurt like hell, now that the feeling was returning. At the same time, he felt out of it, as if he could drift off into something like bone-deep sleep if he let go. It seemed like a fine idea.

No. Mustn't. He had to stay awake and help Luke. Had to get Regina home. He had to find out if the boy—what was his name? Stephan. Yes—had to find out if Stephan was all right.

Hands touched him, shaking him. A competent palm was pressed to his forehead as if searching for fever. When was the last time anyone had done that
for him? He couldn't remember, but he thought it must have been when he was thirteen and had the flu.

“Kane? Kane, wake up!”

It was Regina, her hands, her voice. Both were cool yet urgent. He liked that. He pried his eyes open and was vaguely surprised at the effort it took.

She was leaning over him, trying to unfasten his seat belt. He searched her face that was so close, willing her to meet his eyes. When she did, he found he preferred staring into their intriguing hazel depths instead of speaking.

“You're bleeding,” she said as if he were committing a terrible crime.

“I know.”

“Why didn't you say something, for heaven's sake? What were you doing being such a macho martyr?”

“It's nothing.”

“Oh, sure. Just a scratch, I suppose. Who do you think you are, Eastwood and Stallone rolled into one?”

He grinned, couldn't help it. “Why are you so mad? I'm the one who got shot.”

“Because you've got blood all over Stephan's clothes, you jerk,” she answered, dragging the sodden backpack away from his side, refusing to meet his gaze again. “Come on, get up and let's go to the back so I can do something about whatever hole you've got in you.”

Luke, frowning as he glanced away from the plane's controls, said to her, “First-aid kit's in one of the bins. Should be some sizable bandages in it.”

She nodded her thanks, then leaned down to remove Kane's seat belt. “Come on, get up,” she insisted as
she lifted his arm and put it around her neck. “I can't move you by myself, though I'll help all I can.”

He let her take a part of his weight, not because he couldn't make it by himself, but because it was irresistible. He wanted to see how far her care would go. He was also curious to know what drove it, whether gratitude or guilt, simple human kindness or something that he could give no name.

Her hands were gentle as she helped him out of his light jacket. She frowned and sank her teeth into her bottom lip as she saw the gory sight he presented under it, but reached at once for the buttons of his shirt. Briefly, he was reminded of the night before, when he had forced her to undress him. It almost seemed that this repeat under far different circumstances was a suitable punishment for that crime.

“Why didn't you tell someone about this before we took off?” she asked in a strained undertone. “You need more than a bandage. You need a good doctor.”

“We could have wound up spending the rest of the night in an emergency room and all day tomorrow at a police station after the doctor filed his gunshot-wound report. No thanks.”

“You'd rather bleed to death first?”

“I'd rather you stopped fussing as if I were no older than Stephan and just fixed me up.”

She gave him an incensed look. “I'm trying!”

She was, though he saw her shiver and turn pale as she looked closely at the bloody mess of his wound. Still, she didn't balk at tending him, only swallowed hard, then set to work. But her hair that brushed his arm set him on fire, and the clean, fresh scent of her had an effect on his senses like twelve-year-old bour
bon. His side ached and he felt dizzy, yet all he could think of was pulling her down on his lap in the female superior position and seeing how much of him she would take, how deep inside her he could get, before he passed out.

He was losing it. Moistening his lips that seemed far too dry, he said, “I don't suppose there's any orange juice or cold drinks on board?”

“Orange juice?”

“I need the sugar for glucose, to counter blood loss.”

She gave him a swift, appraising glance, then pushed abruptly to her feet. “I'll see.”

The juice was sweet and cold and hit his system like a blood transfusion. He downed the whole can and asked for another. Afterward, he was able to stay awake while she peeled his sticky wet shirt away from the wound. She wouldn't try cleaning it, she said, because the long gouge had almost stopped bleeding and she didn't want to start it again.

Kane was just as happy. His family doctor, a man as old as Pops and twice as discreet, would see to him when he got home. He told her so, and it seemed to satisfy her. She strapped him up in a couple of gauze pads, two whole rolls of bandaging, and a few metal hooks. When she was through, he felt as if he was wearing a corset that barely allowed him to breathe, but had conquered both his queasiness and peculiar sexual impulses.

Regina disappeared into the rest room, presumably to wash his blood from her hands. When she came back, she draped a blanket around his shoulders, then sat down in the seat beside him. Folding her hands
like a prim child, she looked at him for long moments with pained regret in her eyes. Finally, she said, “I'm so sorry you were hurt because of what I asked you to do. I'd never have asked you if I'd known this would happen.”

“You weren't the one who took it for granted Berry wouldn't be around just because his lawyers said so.” He kept the words light, hoping she'd let it drop.

“I could have told you he carried a pocket pistol.”

Kane lay with his head resting on the back of the seat, observing in fascination the shift of color under her pale skin. “It might have been nice to know, but it wouldn't have changed a thing.”

“Maybe, but I still feel terrible.” She looked down at her hands and her voice was compressed as she went on, “I can't thank you enough for what you did, getting Stephan out of there for me. You had your reasons, I know. Still, I'm more grateful than I can say. If there's any way I can repay you, you have only to ask.”