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  He held a handgun in his right hand. He looked at her, smiled, then pointed it and said, “See? It doesn’t matter where anybody is. They won’t stop me right now. I’m too close, and it’s too guaranteed.”

  “Is killing me worth losing everything else?”

  “But I won’t,” he said, with a smile.

  Behind Reginald, she saw Kano stand up. And, to the right, she could see her mother. Both of them had lined up shots on her newfound brother. She looked at Reginald and asked, “Why does everybody see me as completely useless, completely incapable of handling myself?” she snapped.

  “Because you are.”

  Instinctively she saw his trigger finger move, and she threw herself to the ground, lifted her gun, and fired. At the same time, she heard other shots fired into the darkness. As more bullets hit Reginald, finally his body collapsed to the ground. She sat up slowly, as Kano raced to her side. She held up a hand and said, “Wait! There’s one more.”

  “No,” her mother said, stepping out. “There isn’t.”

  She looked at her mother, as Kano wrapped his arms around her. “Why did you never tell me?”

  “Because something was wrong with him,” she said. “I kept hoping he would straighten up, but it’s like he had every rotten quality inside him and absolutely none of the good qualities that only you seem to have,” she murmured.

  Catherine realized her mom was holding her shoulder. “You’ve been shot.”

  “Yes,” she said, with a smile, looking down at her shoulder. “Such a strange feeling too.”

  Catherine wanted to race over, but her mother still had that gun in her hand.

  “Is this over now?” Kano asked DeeDee.

  “Take her and go. Remember your promise.”

  “We’ll go,” he said, “but do you realize how much cleaning up you have to do?”

  “Yes, I know. And I put the only man I trust in the hospital.” Looking at Catherine, she smiled and shook her head. “Kano, take her away from here. She makes me lose my focus.”

  “She makes you want other things in life,” he said gently.

  “And that won’t happen,” she said. “There is no other life for me.” Just then the back door opened, and Fallon stepped in, crouched, his gun hand up. He looked at Kano and Catherine and then at the mother. “Are we free and clear? I took out one man outside.”

  “I hope you didn’t kill him,” DeeDee said. “He was mine.”

  “If he was yours, you might want to vet him again because, while we were out there, he made a phone call, looking for a pickup and a flight to Africa.”

  She stared at him in shock. “What? That’s a new hire. He’s young, my assigned driver.”

  “And one of the three inside here was the other guy involved when they tried to grab me from the hospital,” Catherine murmured.

  “They came on good ref—” And DeeDee stopped and frowned.

  “Good references?” Kano asked.

  “Yes,” she said, leaning slowly against the stack of boxes, obviously struggling for strength. Catherine wanted to race to her, but Kano held her back.

  “Whose reference?” Kano asked.

  She frowned, looked at him, and said, “Somebody in the industry that I know,” she said. “Somebody I’ve never had a reason to question before.”

  “I think you have reason to question everything now,” he said.

  “Isn’t that the truth?” She sighed and said, “I think I need to sit down.”

  At that, she sagged slowly to the ground. Catherine broke free of Kano’s arms and raced to her side. And then, as she got there, her mom looked up at her, half a smile on her face. “Mom, are you okay?”

  “Not only am I not okay,” she said, “my world has changed anyway.” She patted Catherine gently on the cheek and said, “Michael would like it if you kept up a relationship.”

  “I was planning on it,” she said, reaching out to check her mother’s pulse rate. It was high; she was going into shock. She turned to Kano and said, “We need an ambulance.”

  “I’ve already called it in,” Fallon said at her side. “How bad is it?”

  They could see arterial bleeding now, where before, in the darkness, it had been hard to see.

  “She’s dying,” Catherine said, her voice stark. At that, Kano came up and put a hand against her shoulder and squeezed. She looked up at him, straightened, and said, “She’s gone.” And such shock was in her voice. She didn’t even know it was her own. She looked down at the mother she’d been so tormented to see—her mother’s eyes closed, her face relaxed, an almost sweet innocence taking over her features. “My God,” she said, “and just like that.”

  “I know,” he said. “Just like that, you’ve lost your mother.”

  “And a brother,” she said absentmindedly, still struggling to take that in.

  “On the other hand,” Kano said, “you’ve gained a father.”

  She looked up, startled, then smiled. “That’s the truth too.” She stepped away from her mother, the woman who had caused her such conflicting emotions, and said, “It’ll take me a while to process all this.”

  “You’ll have time,” he said, drawing her back into his arms.

  She buried her face against his chest and said, “Do I, or are you pushing me?”

  He tilted up her chin and said, “Listen. We’ll spend a few days together right now,” he said, “so we can work through some issues. But the bottom line is, I won’t push you. I won’t pressure you. I’ll just be here for you.”

  She smiled, wrapped her arms around his neck, and said, “I can’t think of anything better.”

  *

  Several hours later Kano led Catherine back to her apartment. Fallon had taken off to their hotel room, leaving them alone. As Kano let her in, she was still in shock, the look on her face revealing her struggle to decipher everything that had just happened.

  “It’s just so much to take in,” she muttered, as she yawned.

  “Bed first, and then we’ll talk,” he murmured.

  “Okay,” she said, as she struggled to head toward her bedroom. He looked at her, frowned, and asked, “Do you need anything before you crash? Because, when you do, you’re likely to go down for hours.”

  “You mean, like my emails and phone and all that stuff?” She shook her head. “It’ll be fine.”

  “What about the little boy Jeremy?”

  At that, she pulled out her phone, checked, and smiled. “Update on Samantha. She’s doing better, and Jeremy is also doing okay. He’s in her room, snuggled up beside his mom at the moment. The doctors decided they needed some time together, while she heals.”

  “Is that allowed?”

  “No, but then it’s nighttime, and all kinds of things can happen, when people relax the rules a little bit, putting humanity first.”

  “Got it,” he said. “Shower?”

  She looked up at him and nodded. “I was thinking no because I’m too tired. But I know I’ll sleep better.” She started stripping off clothes, heading toward the bedroom. He followed along behind, collecting her discards and putting them in a pile on the floor outside the bathroom for her.

  By the time he got to the doorway, she stood there nude, turning on the water. He immediately stepped back to give her privacy, but she didn’t even turn around and said, “You might as well get in here and get your shower too.”

  He froze at that and said, “I don’t think you’re ready for that.”

  “Because to have a shower together means we’d have more than just a shower, right?” There was laughter in her voice.

  “No way it’d be just a shower,” he said. “I’ve waited too long.”

  “So have I,” she said, turning to face him, standing tall and slim in front of him. “Strip down, soldier boy. Let’s get that shower done, so we can crash.”

  “You make it sound like a chore,” he said, with half a smile, but he was already tearing the clothes off his body. “Parts of it will be a chore,
” she said. “My hair will need several shampoos to get it clean again. But, as far as the rest,” she said, her voice turning smoky, “we never had a problem with that before.”

  “And won’t now either,” he said, as he stepped under the hot spray and took her in his arms. But he didn’t kiss her. He didn’t do anything but hold her.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I know I scared you tonight.”

  He shook his head at that. “And, once again, all you do is think about others.”

  “Some things,” she said, “are impossible for me not to do. I am who I am, and I guess that’s one of the lessons I must learn about both my mother and brother,” she murmured. “It doesn’t matter who we are, we still have to be true to ourselves. So I’ll always be like this. I’ll always look at other people, and I’ll always want to do the right thing. So if you can’t handle that …”

  He reached out, tapped a finger to her lips, and whispered, “I know what you’re like. It’s how you’ve always been. I hated myself for having to wake you up to the truth about your mother.”

  “No,” she said, “I already knew. I just wasn’t willing to see. I already had lots of questions by then, and, at some point in time, I would have come to the same conclusion. You just brought it all to a head much faster. That made me very angry, and I felt manipulated by you and her.”

  “It’s been a lot of years,” he said.

  “A lot of years,” she reiterated, sliding her wet arms around his neck. “Don’t you think we’ve waited long enough?”

  He lowered his head, but his kiss was gentle and tender. She shook her head and said, “No, like we used to.”

  He looked at her in surprise. She pressed her wet body against his, skin to skin, hip to hip, chest to chest, and he could feel his blood pressure taking off. Once he released the reins on his control, he couldn’t get enough of her. Bodies slick, hot water pressing down, the steam rising all around them, it was all he could do to hold back and to not slam her against the tiled wall and take her right here.

  Only she wasn’t helping his control at all, mewling in his arms with every kiss, every tongue slash. Every stroke of his hands was immediately answered by strokes of hers, their bodies sliding hungrily against each other until finally, she was crawling up his frame. He pinned her against the wall, pulling his head back, trying to shake the water from his eyes. He held her hips tight against the wall, braced himself at her entrance, and she twisted in his arms frantically.

  “Easy,” he murmured.

  “To hell with easy,” she muttered. “Everybody’s always telling me to calm down, to be quiet, and to take it easy, as if I’m always so much in control and so naïve,” she said. “You know exactly what it was like for us before.”

  “I know,” he muttered. “I’m trying to make it last.”

  She laughed. “No way this first one will last. We’ve been waiting far too long for that.” She grabbed his hips and started moving, sliding herself up and down his shaft with a ferocity that had him groaning in delight. Instantly he felt the tightness in his groin, and, with his head back, he roared, “Stop.”

  She chuckled and said, “Hell no,” and drove harder and faster for her own pleasure. Just as he exploded, pushing deep inside her, she cried out with her own release and sagged against him.

  Still under the hot water, the two of them pressed tight against the wall, he moaned. “You’ll kill me.”

  “I think you used to say that too.”

  “God, you’re always the hottest, deadliest thing in bed,” he muttered, desperately trying to get his breath back.

  “I’ll take that as a compliment,” she said, shivering in his arms.

  “We still have to get that hair washed,” he murmured.

  “That we do,” she said, “but I don’t want to move.”

  “I don’t think we can stay in this position,” he muttered, with laughter.

  “I guess not,” she murmured. With his help, she slowly lowered herself to the shower seat and grabbed the shampoo, while he went for the bar of soap. She did her hair while he scrubbed everything else, making her shiver in delight again.

  “We might not make it to the bed for the second round,” she warned.

  “And I’m okay with that too,” he said. “That first time, damn. I forgot what it was like.”

  “I never forgot anything,” she cried out passionately. “I’ve missed you so damn much.”

  “Yet you didn’t contact me, call me, or anything,” he snapped.

  “Nope, I didn’t,” she said. “I figured that your guilt was keeping you away, and I needed to wait for you to come around.”

  “Stupid.”

  “Well,” she said, “actually an email is in my Drafts folder. I was getting ready to contact you anyway,” she said, “because I couldn’t wait for you to get your shit together.”

  He chuckled. “Yeah, well,” he said, “I don’t know how many times I’ve started and stopped an email myself.”

  She looked up, smiled, and said, “Really?”

  He nodded. “Really. I just didn’t want to open a door that I knew I had crashed closed so badly.”

  “Not an issue,” she said. “I did grow up eventually. And it wasn’t all that easy, and it wasn’t painless,” she said, “but I made it.”

  “You’ve become an absolutely dynamite woman,” he said, with joy in his heart. “Don’t ever forget that.”

  She wrapped her arms around his neck and whispered, “I’m all clean. How about you?”

  “Yep. You want to get out of the shower?”

  “No,” she said, “I want round two,” and brought his head down for a passionate kiss.

  With a burst of laughter, he picked her up, put her against the shower wall, and said, “I’m up for it anytime you are.”

  She wiggled against him and chuckled. “Apparently you are.”

  He laughed and said, “Everybody sees this beautiful sweet innocent woman on the outside,” he said, “and I see the absolute tiger on the inside. I have to tell you that I’m loving it.”

  She stopped, looked up at him, and said, “And I need you to know that I love you,” she said. “I always have. I’m so sorry for all these years.”

  He placed a finger against her lips yet again. “Don’t apologize,” he said. “Nothing breaks my heart more than to have you keep apologizing for something that you didn’t do. I’m sorry too. But it is what it is. And just so that we’re clear,” he said, “I never stopped loving you.”

  This time, when he lowered his head, he knew that he wouldn’t raise it for a long time coming. This wasn’t what he’d expected when he took on this job, but, damn it, he could have imagined nothing better for a personal outcome.

  “Neither could I,” she murmured against him, making him realize he’d said it out loud. “I’m just so glad you came here and took on this job.”

  So was he.

  Epilogue

  Fallon Carter was happy for Kano and Catherine. Talk about star-crossed lovers. As for DeeDee, there wasn’t a hell of a lot he could even say about her. Talk about a mess. But something drove Fallon to go to the hospital and to talk to Michael. As he walked in, Michael looked up, surprise in his eyes.

  “Hey, I didn’t expect to see you here.”

  “No,” Fallon said, “I get that, but some news is good, and some isn’t.” Immediately Michael’s gaze clouded.

  “Yes,” he said. “She’s gone.” Fallon looked at Michael fearfully. “Just to clarify, we lost DeeDee tonight.”

  Michael’s face turned gray and pasty.

  “On the other hand, your daughter, Catherine, is fine.”

  He sank back against the bed and whispered, “I’m glad to hear that, but I’ve been worried about DeeDee for a while.”

  “Yeah, she definitely had some vipers within the company, of which Reginald was the biggest problem.”

  “Yes, I know.” But Michael looked at Fallon, as if wondering.

  “Yes, we know t
hat he was Catherine’s brother. He’s also dead.”

  At that, just relief was in Michael’s expression. “Good,” he said. “I told her that she needed to shoot him a long time ago. Some people are just born bad.”

  “We’re also not at the end of the shit deal as to what’s going on with Bullard and our crew yet.”

  “And I don’t have any idea what to tell you on that one either,” he said, “except I think Reginald was being paid by somebody close to Bullard.”

  “Close to Bullard?”

  “That’s what Reginald said. But he would always laugh, like in a mocking way, over the close to Bullard thing.”

  At those words, Fallon’s heart sank at the idea of somebody in the team betraying them. “It wouldn’t be any of the team,” he said stoutly.

  “Reginald never said anything of value, and half of what he said was always a lie, so you couldn’t count on it. So even though he said that it was someone close to Bullard, I don’t know for sure that it was.”

  “I thought for sure DeeDee had something to do with it.”

  “She really liked him,” he said, “and he was the only guy she ever worried about. Even the ones she married, she didn’t really like. … She married them more as a joke. Because she could.”

  “Do you think she killed them? The husbands?”

  “I’ve always thought so,” he said sadly, “but she never admitted it, so I honestly don’t know for sure. And, with her gone now, it won’t matter. I think, in a way, it will help Catherine a lot. It won’t help me though.”

  “I don’t know about that,” he said, “but Catherine doesn’t want to lose track of you. Now that she has some family and just found out about some she’s already lost, she’s bound to be very confused right now.”

  “If Kano stays with her, that’ll be good for her,” Michael said. “He’s a good man.”

  “He is, indeed, and he’s about to become her husband, I would bet,” he said. “I know they would want your best wishes for that.”

  Michael looked surprised at that, but then he looked pleased. “And they would certainly have that,” he said. “I’ve always loved that little girl. DeeDee never came right out and said Catherine was mine, but, in my heart, I always knew it, and she’s always been very special to me.”