The Dangerous Boxed Set Page 18

  If he got whacked, the Unit and all its resources, his teammates, even his boss would provide a shield for Charity, protect her. The Unit took care of its own. By marrying her, he would make Charity one of theirs. As soon as he announced the marriage, he’d make sure they understood that.

  Charity was staring at him, light gray eyes wide.

  “I—” She cleared her throat. “I beg your pardon? What did you say?”

  Her astonishment brought a smile to his face, a lightness he hadn’t felt all morning. The way ahead was full of darkness and traps, but there might be a path through it, if he could just feel his way.

  Nick took her left hand and slowly removed the supple kid glove. Her skin was soft, warm. He brought her hand up to his mouth and kissed her fingers, watching her eyes, choosing his words carefully.

  “I know this sounds crazy, honey. We’ve only known each other a week. But it’s been a…very intense week. I know that I’ve never felt this way before about any other woman, and that’s not going to change. In my job, I’m forced to make fast decisions and so far, they’ve all been good ones. This one is a good one and time won’t change it in any way. I don’t want to wait. I love you and I want to spend the rest of my life with you.”

  What was left of it, anyway.

  Nick watched her carefully. Her hand had gone slack in his, then had tightened. What was she thinking?

  “Marriage,” she whispered, eyes searching his.

  It sounded crazy to him, too. But he had to convince her. Now that he’d come up with his plan, he couldn’t wait to put it into effect.

  He nodded. “Marriage. Now.”

  Her hand jerked in his. “Now? You mean—right now?” She looked at the gray courthouse wall. “Just…walk in and get married?”

  “Yes. Right now.” He wished it were already done. He kissed her hand again. “I’m not certain, but I might have to go away on business next week, and I might stay away…awhile.” This time next week, he might be dead. “I want to know when I leave that you’re mine. Forever.” And alive, he added silently. “I’m thirty-four and I know myself. I know what I feel and I know this is serious. This is it.” He paused. “At least for me it is. I’m hoping you feel the same.”

  “Yes, I do,” she said simply, and his heart soared. His lovely Charity. How typical of her. No coyness, no dancing around, no games. “Yes, I feel the same. That it’s serious, and true, and deep.”

  “Exactly.” Inside, he exulted. This was going to work! He couldn’t think about when he’d leave. Right now, he was concentrated on getting her into the Unit’s protective embrace. “Now, you know and I know that we could have a long engagement. We could date for another six months, a year, and nothing would change except we’d be a year older. I’d still feel the same and I hope you would, too.”

  She nodded, eyes unwavering on his.

  “My job as a stockbroker is basically to understand not so much what to do but when to do it. I have an instinct for good timing. And my instinct says that this is the right thing to do. Right now.”

  “Nick,” she said quietly, looking troubled, slowly sliding her hand from his. “You must understand, I can’t move to Manhattan, much as I’d like to. It would be exciting, and I can’t hide from you that I love the idea, but I have responsibilities here. I’m sorry. I don’t know if you can accept that.”

  His heart squeezed and for a second he lost his voice.

  She loved him. He knew that, or else he’d never have had this crazy idea, never could have hoped to make it work. It was there in the way she looked at him, touched him, fucked him. No—made love with him.

  It spoke to her nature that she’d be willing to give up marriage to the man she loved for her elderly aunt and uncle.

  “I don’t have to live in New York,” he said gently. “They have these fantastic inventions called the Internet and e-mail. I can do most of my business from here. What little I can’t do over the Net, I can take care of on short trips.”

  With each word, he saw joy blossom more brightly on her face, artless and devastating, because he knew what he’d be leaving behind after he was gone. He was going to break her heart.

  But—however miserable she’d be when he disappeared, however devastated and grief-stricken, she’d be alive, and that was what mattered. Nobody dies of a broken heart. They do die of a meat hook through the heart.

  Nick was a hard man. Hard men made hard choices. And he’d made his.

  “Come with me,” he murmured, lifting a hand to tuck a curl behind her ear. He gestured out the windshield at the big door set in the gray wall in front of them. “In there. We can be married in an hour. And since we’re doing this the unconventional way, afterward we can go shopping for rings. Soon, maybe next week or when the weather clears up, we can have a little reception for your folks and friends. I was thinking at Da Emilio’s. You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”

  She nodded, smiling. “Yes, I’d like that.”

  “As long as they let me pay,” he added.

  He stroked her face, the skin so soft. Warm. Alive. “I need to take care of something this afternoon, but I’ll be back by five, six at the latest.” A quick kiss. “And we’ll have our wedding night tonight.” He stirred, just thinking of it.

  It came to him with a quick punch to his stomach that tonight he could be making love to his wife. Words he never thought he’d ever say. Not even in his head.

  Even if the marriage lasted only a week or two, and he disappeared forever afterward, he’d have had that. More than he ever thought he’d have.

  Nick nodded at the big steel doors leading into the courthouse. “What do you say, darling? Shall we get married?”

  She didn’t say anything, just looked at him. Charity had an open face and Nick could always tell what she was thinking. All her emotions were up front and visible. Except now, when he couldn’t read her at all.

  Charity said nothing. And it suddenly occurred to him that she hadn’t said yes yet.

  Sweat gathered along his spine, under his arms. Fuck. It had never even occurred to him that she might say no. If she refused, what the hell was he going to do?

  The only other option would be to take her into protective custody. Essentially jail her. And he’d do it, by God. Cuff her if he had to. Drag her into custody kicking and screaming and keep her there until this whole sorry mess was settled.

  “So?” he growled.

  Nick could feel his muscles tensing. The low, insistent noise of imminent danger in the back of his head dialed up a couple of notches. If she said no, he was taking her in, right now. To hell with Worontzoff. They could get Worontzoff on their own. Nick would go crazy worrying about her, compromise the mission, so the only way he could function was to restrain her and drive her immediately into Birmingham.

  They’d put her in a safe house, under guard 24/7. Safe houses were miserably dingy at best, and most were downright seedy. He’d been in more than one with cockroaches. And anyone under guard in a safe house subsisted off stale pizza and beer. Standing guard in a safe house was the most boring security work imaginable and the only way men could stand it was to let themselves go. Inside a day, any safe house in the world looked and smelled like Animal House and the men on guard lost about twenty points off their IQ. Lighting farts was a big diversion on guard duty.

  She’d hate it—used to pretty surroundings and perfumed rooms and cut flowers in vases and fresh fruit and vegetables. She’d hate being in a safe house, with no privacy, none of her things around her, guarded over by loutish, uncaring men.

  “So,” he said again. He tried to keep his voice soft. Nicholas Ames, asking a woman he’d fallen in love with to marry him. Not Nick Ireland, willing to abduct her if she said no. “What’s your answer?”

  Charity suddenly smiled, eyes shining. “Yes,” she said softly. “Oh yes!”

  Sixteen

  It went smoothly. And fast.

  Nobody else wanted to get married on this dark, icy winter day, s
o after filling out forms and producing IDs, the clerk ushered them immediately into a large room with a podium at the other end.

  The room was filled with remnants of weddings past. Big vases of wilted flowers flanked the podium and formed a little honor brigade on either side of the aisle. White satin bows hung from the windows and the smell of scented candles still lingered in little pockets of fragrance. The empty chairs were like ghosts in the room.

  A smiling woman and a gray-haired man stood at the podium, watching benevolently as Nick and Charity walked up the aisle, hand in hand.

  Half an hour later, they walked out, man and wife.

  Or rather, Nicholas Ames walked out a married man. Nick Ireland was still…what? Single? Legally, yeah, he was single. He didn’t feel single any more, though, not with a beaming Charity on his arm, responding happily to her new name, Mrs. Ames.

  Like pulling the petals off a daisy. Married. Not married. Married. Not married…

  It was a farce, of course. The whole marriage thing. He was a nonexistent man taking vows to be faithful until death. Ridiculous. He didn’t even believe in marriage. Nothing in his lifetime had ever led him to think that marriage was anything but a legal way to scratch an itch. Stupid, expensive way, too, when there were so many other ways to get laid.

  Most of the men in Delta Force were divorced. Several times over, too, which just proved that the smartest men in the world could be led around by their dicks. For a while, at least.

  And in the Unit—few of them even managed girlfriends, let alone wives. A long-term commitment was twenty minutes. Roll on, roll off, good-bye. It wasn’t a lifestyle conducive to relationships. That wasn’t anything that bothered him, until now. Marriage was for civilians.

  And yet—and yet.

  There’d been a moment there, when the gray-haired man read aloud some bible thing about cleaving unto each other, then made them repeat vows to look after each other in sickness and in health, then quietly pronounced them man and wife. When Charity lifted her radiant face for his kiss. When a goddamned shaft of sunlight unexpectedly broke through the slate gray sky to fucking shine at their feet like some fucking sign from heaven.

  Then, right then, the whole thing felt…real. For an instant, he could believe he really was Nicholas Ames, businessman, marrying a wonderful woman, till death do us part. They’d live in that beautiful house which they’d fill up with kids. Take a week’s vacation in Aruba each winter. Plant roses and establish a wine cellar and buy a goddamned dog.

  It was like a fork in the road and he could see far down where that road would take him. He’d become a family man, pillar of the community. Mow the lawn on Saturdays, coach Little League. Father, husband, neighbor…

  Nah.

  Nick wasn’t born for that life. What the fuck did he know about families? Dick is what he knew. His mother had abandoned him at an orphanage; she probably didn’t even know who his father was. He had tainted, renegade blood in him. And his upbringing, well…Charity could never know what his childhood had been like. What he’d done, what he’d seen. She’d recoil in disgust. Any woman would. And what he was would come out, sooner or later. No one can stay undercover for a lifetime. So a real marriage wasn’t in the cards, ever.

  But still, for just a minute there…

  Afterward, he took her to a jewelry store. The jewelry store, the only one in Parker’s Ridge. This was one thing that was on him. He wouldn’t make Uncle Sam pay for this. But what the fuck, he had a million dollars now, didn’t he? He could afford a pair of rings.

  The store didn’t have a big selection and he was just about to settle for a plain regular wedding band size extra large and a band and a diamond for Charity, when he saw them.

  A pair of claddagh rings, set in a velvet box under glass. A large, broad band of gold with four claddaghs etched on the ring for him, and the symbol itself as a gold ring for Charity.

  The claddagh, the Celtic symbol of true love.

  It was the only thing he had of his mother.

  On the twenty-first of December, 1976, the night watchman of the orphanage heard a bell ring. It rang only a few times a year and it was the sensor of the only baby hatch in America at that time. Now there were 150 of them, most of them funded by Jake.

  The hatch was a warmed baby bed, and it was why Nick had survived that night, the coldest night of the winter of 1975. He had been placed in a cheap plastic basin, wrapped in a blanket stolen from the downtown homeless shelter. The doctors wrote down that, in their estimation, he was three or four days old and that he’d been breast-fed sporadically. The only object in the basin was a small, cheap trinket, sold by the millions in Ireland. A claddagh medallion.

  Nick had that medallion in his pocket.

  “Honey,” he said, “come here.”

  Charity put down the ring she’d been looking at and walked over to him.

  Nick picked up the smaller ring, meant for a woman’s hand. He placed it in the palm of her hand. “Do you know what this is?”

  Charity picked it up, turning it around. Two stylized hands clasping a heart topped by a crown. “No, but it’s very pretty. An unusual design, though.” She looked up with a frown. “What is it?”

  “A claddagh. It’s an ancient Celtic symbol. Look, see the hands holding the heart?”

  Charity nodded. “And what’s that on top?”

  “A crown.” Nick smiled mysteriously. “There’s a story behind it. You’ll love it.”

  The jeweler had discreetly retreated to the other side of the room to give them privacy. A wind-borne burst of sleet rapped against the big picture window, rattling it. If it rattled, it meant it was a thin pane of glass loose in the casement.

  Jesus, Nick thought. The geezer didn’t even have bullet-resistant windows. A small fortune in gold and diamonds and any dirtbag could smash his fist through the window and grab a handful. What was wrong with these people?

  Without thinking about it, he angled his body so that he was between the front window and Charity.

  He placed the two rings on his open palm and held them out to her and told her the story of the claddagh. One of the stories. There were dozens. He chose the one he thought Charity’d like best.

  “Many, many years ago, in Galway, Ireland, a man named Richard Joyce left his true love to go to the West Indies to seek his fortune. He promised her he’d come back to her a rich man and marry her. But on the way he was kidnapped by pirates and taken to Algiers, where he became a slave to the most famous goldsmith in the Mediterranean. Joyce was an enterprising young man and the goldsmith trained him well. He became a master goldsmith.

  “One day the British king demanded the release of all British prisoners held in Algiers. The goldsmith offered Joyce half his fortune and his daughter in marriage if he would only stay. But Joyce wanted to go home and marry his true love, and he did. While still a slave, he’d forged a ring to symbolize his love and upon his return, he gave it to his sweetheart, who’d waited faithfully for him all those years.”

  Charity was listening intently to him, face rapt. “When the ring is put on the right hand, it means that person’s heart is open. When it’s on the left hand ring finger with the heart facing outward, it means the person is engaged. When it’s on the left hand ring finger with the heart pointing towards the body, it means that person is married to their true love.”

  Nick picked up the smaller ring and gently slid it onto her left ring finger, heart facing the body.

  A perfect fit. He curled his fist around hers.

  “When Joyce gave it to his wife, he said, ‘With these hands I give you my heart and I crown it with my love.’” He smiled down at her. “And that’s what it means to me, too.”

  “Nick,” she whispered. Her eyes were shiny, white throat moving as she swallowed.

  “No crying,” Nick said, alarmed. Jesus, that was the last thing he needed, a bawling female. No tears, she couldn’t cry, no way. His own throat felt tight and hot. She’d set him off and he never ever
cried. Never. Iceman.

  “Here,” he said swiftly and held out the man’s ring. “Put it on my finger.”

  She slid it on and they both looked down at his hand. It was a little tight, but that could be taken care of. Or not. He wasn’t going to wear it for very long, anyway. Another week, two, max.

  The thought dimmed some of the joy and he pushed it out of his head. Concentrate on the moment. And this moment was a fine one, one he’d remember for a long, long time. Charity, looking up at him as if he’d invented sunshine and found the cure for cancer, the old geezer smiling at them both as if they were his beloved grandkids.

  Oodles of love and warmth floating around. Nick was surprised they weren’t melting snow at a hundred paces.

  Okay. Enough of this. There was stuff to do, pronto.

  He had to break the news to his teammates camped out in an uncomfortable van that he’d married their prime contact.

  Nick knew he was going to take a lot of flak for it, he’d be yelled at and threatened, he might even be demoted, and his boss would have a coronary, but in the end, they’d agree to protect Charity as long as necessary and that was what counted. A team of good guys would have her back.

  Let them scream. He was tough. He could take it. What he couldn’t take was the idea of Charity alone and in danger. He’d just brought the talents of a lot of very tough guys and an entire government agency over to her side.

  He paid for the rings in cash and bundled Charity back into the car. She kept her left glove off, holding her hand up and admiring the ring. It was pretty.

  He flexed his own left hand. The broad band felt heavy and cumbersome on his hand. He didn’t like male jewelry and never imagined he’d ever wear any, let alone a wedding band. It felt weird, awkward, alien.

  Even driving at his poky Nicholas Ames speed, it wasn’t that far to Charity’s house. In ten minutes they were there. Nick parked on the curb and kept the engine running.