Fires of Autumn (50 page)

“Oh, my
God,” he sobbed against her flesh. “Casey, can you hear me? Wake up, angel.
It’s me. I’m here now. Everything’s going to be all right.”

He barely
got the words out through his sobs. He was at eye-level with the gurney and he
began to stroke her face, touching her soft skin, feeling her warmth. In spite
of everything, she was more beautiful than he had remembered.

“I saw the
baby,” he whispered. “He’s perfect, Casey. I’m so proud and thankful.  I can’t
even tell you how much I love him and how much I love you.”

Casey
remained still and unmoving, which fed Colt’s tears. Perhaps he’d foolishly
believed she would hear his voice and emerge from her dreamless sleep.  He’d
had hope. But the reality was harsh; she was far gone, perhaps too far gone and
he couldn’t bring her back.  He laid his head on her arm, simply to be close to
her, as the tears streamed from his face onto her flesh.

“I’m so
sorry I was away for so long,” he murmured.  “I thought of you every second of
every day, wondering how you were and what you were doing.  There was so much
going on… I’m sorry I had to stop calling you, but it couldn’t be helped. God,
do I have stories about bugs and weird food. You wouldn’t believe it. I thought
about bringing some of the bugs home to the boys but, well, those plans kind of
fell through.  I thought Brody would have gotten a kick out of this caterpillar
with a turquoise colored head and a fuzzy green body. Creepy.”

His tears
were fading as he spoke, focusing more on the conversation and less on her dire
state.  He stroked her arm as he spoke, feeling her tender flesh beneath his fingers.

“I know
how you are about strange food,” he continued. “I don’t think you would have
liked it very much.  They eat whatever they can for the most part; birds,
reptiles, that kind of thing. I don’t see you eating that much. You would have
had to subsist on beans. They eat a lot of those.”

He lifted
his head to see if there was any sign of movement but Casey remained deathly
still. Colt could feel his eyes stinging with tears again as he touched her
face again.  Rising wearily to his feet, he leaned over and kissed her sweet
lips.

“I love
you, angel,” he murmured, his hands on her face. “I’m going to stay right here
until you feel like waking up. I won’t leave you, I promise. I’ll be right
here.  Come back to me, Casey. Please come back.”

He kissed
her again as a nurse brought in a plastic chair, which he gratefully took.
Laying his head on her arm again, he put his right arm across her body as if to
hold her.  It was a protective and comforting gesture, hugging her even though
he couldn’t really get a grip on her.  As he lay there with his eyes closed and
tears streaming down his temples, he felt a soft hand on his shoulder. 

Lifting
his head, he saw Riley standing next to him, her free hand over her mouth to
hold back the sobs as she gazed at her sister.  Her teary eyes moved to Colt’s
face.

“I’m
sorry,” she mouthed.

Colt stood
up and pulled her into a warm hug, rocking her gently as she cried.  The nurse
pulled in another chair and the two of them sat down, Colt resuming his
position with his head on Casey’s arm and his arm draped over her body. 
Eventually, he fell asleep, awakened a few hours later when they decided to
move Casey into ICU.

Colt moved
with her, so exhausted that he was at the point of collapse, but nothing was
going to deter him from staying with her.  Casey still hadn’t regained
consciousness by the time by hooked her up in the ICU, but Colt stayed right
next to her, resuming his watchdog position a chair he’d pulled up next to the
bed.  

Riley had
moved with her sister, too, and stayed in ICU a little while but her exhaustion
had the better of her, so she left with her mother to go home and get a few
hours of sleep.  Colt simply lay his head on the bed next to Casey’s arm and
went back to sleep.

All they
could do was wait.

Footsteps
woke Colt some time later.  Startled, swiftly awake, he glanced at his watch
and saw that it was early morning.  Turning around, he saw the President
standing in the doorway.

Russ was
dressed casually in a sweater and jeans, unlike the usually dapper president.
He looked particularly pale and sorrowful as he gazed at Casey, still
unconscious on the bed. Timidly, he took a few steps into the room.

“How is
she?” he asked softly.

Colt
glanced up at Casey’s still face, at the monitors she was hooked up to. “Still
stable,” he said. “She hasn’t moved all night.”

Russ stood
at the end of the bed, his gaze moving to Colt. “What about you?” he asked.
“Did you sleep here all night?”

Colt
nodded, rubbing at his eyes. “I promised her I wouldn’t leave her ever again,”
he said. “I’m going to stay right here until she wakes up.”

Russ
sighed faintly, shoving his hands in his pockets as he contemplated his next
sentence.  He wasn’t quite sure how to deliver the information; information he
had received in bits and pieces for most of the night.  He eventually pulled up
another plastic chair and sat next to Colt.

“I got a
call from Naval Criminal Investigative Services this morning,” he said softly.
“It seems that they had a dead Marine on their hands last night, a murder, and
as they were piecing things together, they came across a dossier in an
apartment out in McLean, Virginia that was about you. It seems that this Marine
was moonlighting as a hired assassin, and someone assassinated
him
. 
They were able to trace deposits to the Marine’s bank account from a Cayman
island account registered to Maria Esperanza Diego Villa.  If that doesn’t mean
anything to you, it should; she’s part of the Noestra clan.”

Colt
sighed faintly, looking at him. “I’m not surprised. They’ve put a contract out
on me.”

Russ
nodded grimly. “It’s all happened in a matter of hours. The Cartel knows you’re
back in the States.”

“I know.”

Russ eyed
him reluctantly. “Colt, I hate to say this, but maybe you should consider going
back into hiding until all this is over. It’s the only safe thing for you to
do.  If they’re hiring rogue Marines to kill you, then we have no way of
knowing who will be out to get you. It could be anyone.”

Colt shook
his head before the President was finished with his sentence. “I’m not leaving
Casey, not again.”

“You’re
not thinking clearly about this,” Russ insisted. “You can’t come back to work
for me, not at the moment, because every assassin on the eastern seaboard is
going to be gunning for you.  More than that, they’ll kill anyone who gets in
their way and consider it collateral damage.  I’m talking about Casey.”

Colt’s
dark eyes fixed on him, somewhat suspiciously.  “Have you been talking to
Dane?”

“No,” Russ
replied. “Did he say the same thing?”

Colt
nodded, his gaze drifting back to Casey. “He came into the nursery last night
after I got here,” he told him. “He tried to tell me what you just told me. He
said I needed to get out of Washington for everyone’s safety, especially
Casey’s.”

Russ was
quiet a moment. “Think of it this way,” he said softly. “If someone else was in
this situation, what would you say to them? What if it was Peter, a marked man
who refused to leave the woman he loved even though he knew she could very well
be killed by those who were targeting him? Worse yet, there’s a baby involved
now.  How would you feel if some hired assassin took out your six month old
son?”

Colt was
starting to lose his composure.  What the President said made perfect sense but
he didn’t want to admit it. He’d had the same thoughts himself but chased them
away, convincing himself that the most important thing that was he and Casey
were together, no matter what.  Now he was starting to struggle because someone
he greatly respected was telling him what he didn’t want to hear.

“Obviously,
I wouldn’t like it,” he muttered, looking at Casey’s sleeping face.  “I guess
the truth is that it would kill me.”

The
President could see the pain in Colt’s expression. ”What if one of those
bullets took out Casey?” he asked softly.

Colt
stared at Casey for a long moment before closing his eyes and hanging his head.

“How do
you think I would feel?” he hissed. “It would eat me alive, destroy me, make me
crazy bent on vengeance. I would wipe out whoever did it and everyone
associated with him; mother, father, brothers, grandfathers… I would take them
all out. I wouldn’t stop until everyone who ever knew the person was dead.
Revenge would consume me.”

Russ
watched him seriously. “Colt, I know you don’t want to hear this,” he murmured.
“I don’t want to say it; believe me. I’ve spent the past six months watching
Casey slowly die.  I don’t mean literally, but figuratively, she wasn’t the
same person after you left.  She had changed so much. She was so miserable
without you. But you have to think of her and the baby in this case and stop
thinking about yourself.  What would be better for her and little Philip? To be
looking over their shoulder ever minute of every day, waiting for that bullet
to come flying at you, at them, maybe even at Casey’s other boys? Or would it
be better for them to miss you terribly but to be safe?  You really have to ask
yourself that question. When you do, I think you’ll know the answer.”

Colt was
staring at Casey’s arm, limp and pale on the bed next to her. As Russ watched,
Colt’s eyes filled with tears and spilled over onto his face.  Then he reached
up, touching Casey’s arm, feeling her flesh beneath his fingers as he carefully
stroked her wrist.

“Oh, God,”
he breathed. “I just can’t… I really don’t want to leave her.”

“I know.”

Colt
continued stroking her arm.  “Put yourself in my shoes,” he whispered. “What
would you do?”

Russ
sighed heavily. “I
am
in your shoes,” he said softly. “Every hour of
every day, I’m a walking target.  My wife got shot because of me and if you
don’t think that was the worst moment of my life, think again. I lost two sons,
Colt. That was bad enough, but watching Tracy take a bullet meant… it was all
kinds of horrible, son.  Take it from me. You don’t want to put your family in
the line of fire if you can at all help it.”

Colt was
looking at him by the time he finished.  “But you continue on,” he said. “You
continue to hold the most visible public office in the world. You didn’t send
Tracy into hiding just to keep her safe.”

Russ
cocked an eyebrow. “No, I didn’t,” he agreed, “but I’ve got an army of guys
like you to keep Tracy and I safe. I have the most advanced security force in
the world. You don’t have your own personal security force, Colt. It’s just you
against contract killers who are going to view your family as collateral damage
as they try to get to you. There’s a world of difference there.”

“So what
are you telling me?”

“I’m
telling you that if I were in you, I’d go hide someplace where they could never
find me. I would rather have my wife alive and miserable because she missed me
than dead from a bullet that was meant for me.”

Colt had
finished stroking Casey’s arm and now held her fingers.   He pulled her hand to
his lips, pensively, kissing her fingers as the tears continued to roll down
his face. He made no attempt to wipe them away.

“You
really think it’s what I should do?” he asked softly.

“I do,”
Russ muttered firmly. “I’m sorry, but I do. Where do you think you’ll go?”

Colt
sighed, thinking of something he didn’t want to think about but forcing
himself.  Russ was right and he knew it.  Already, it was killing him.

“I know of
three thousand acres in Montana where it would be pretty difficult to find me,”
he whispered. “How long do I stay?”

“However
long it takes.”

Colt
finally wiped at his face, drying up the tears, although his gaze was on
Casey’s sleeping face.

“What…
what do I tell her?”

“Nothing,”

Colt
looked at him, shocked. “What?”

Russ remained
firm. “She hasn’t seen you in six months,” he said. “I think in her own way,
she’s been resigning herself to the fact that she may never see you again. If
she sees you now and you have to leave her again… you’ll just undo what has
been trying to heal within her. It’s like ripping the scab off a wound that’s
just starting to heal. The damage will be worse the second time around.”

Colt
stared at him a moment before returning his gaze to Casey one last time.  He
was starting to choke up again.

“I really
want to tell her that I love her,” he whispered. “I want her to know.”

Russ stood
up. “Then you tell her now,” he murmured, having a hard time looking at Colt
and the despair on the man’s face. “Tell her while she’s sleeping.  She’ll hear
you in her dreams.  And then you get the hell out of here and don’t look back.”

“But she’s
going to know I was here,” Colt pointed out. “Everyone has seen me. What’s she
going to think of me coming to the hospital and then leaving before we had a
chance to talk?”