Close to You

  Her head had tilted sideways like a flower on a broken stem. The skin over her bruises peeled back. Still she stared at him, her eyes unforgiving, while she wrung her hands. "Look, George!"

  George glanced at the Prescotts. Ramos had fallen. The Prescotts gathered around him, giving first aid. But George couldn't quite hear them. They seemed distant somehow, as if they'd moved away from him.

  That man's body seemed to lie farther away, too. It seemed smaller. A fly had landed on the open wound and . . .

  George flinched and turned his head away.

  The grave was still open, a shaft of the blackest black he'd ever viewed. It was impossible, of course, but it appeared to lead down to . . . nothing.

  He took a step toward it.

  He turned back. Odd. He could still see Bennett and Lana perfectly well. Lana gazed at him. Tears shimmered in her eyes, and she looked as if she were sorry for him. Sorry for George Oberlin, senior senator and one of the wealthiest men in Texas!

  Bennett looked grave and stern, like a minister of the Almighty who actually believed in God, actually believed in His commandments, actually believed in eternal damnation—and expected to see it done. Now.

  "Go and look, George." Evelyn paced toward him. The wound on her cheek had broken open. She looked gruesome. And dead. And vengeful. "Look into your grave."

  He didn't want to, but he didn't want her close to him, either. He didn't want her to know he was afraid, and for some reason, he had to know why that black rectangle was there.

  He walked closer to that still, waiting darkness. Got within a foot. Stopped.

  "Look!" Evelyn said.

  He edged closer.

  There was nothing down there. It was just . . . black. It didn't smell, it gave off neither heat nor cold, and when he leaned over, he could see . . . nothing. It was like looking into the depths of the universe where no star flickered in companionship, no sun gave warmth and brought forth life. It was a void. A blank.

  Nothing.

  "Justice is always done, George." Evelyn's voice spoke right in his ear.

  He spun to look at her.

  She looked healed and content. How was that possible?

  He wanted to slap her. "I killed you. I killed them. I cheated and I lied. I blackmailed the highest men in the land. Justice?" He laughed, and for a wonderful moment he felt like himself again. Like George Oberlin, the most powerful man in Texas. "There's no justice in this world."

  "You're not in that world." Evelyn sounded happy. Too happy.

  Something grabbed his foot.

  He looked down. A slice of the blackness had wrapped itself around his ankle, obliterating it.

  He tried to leap away. He couldn't move.

  "Sometimes justice takes a little time," Evelyn said.

  Fingers of blackness crept up his leg. Like snakes they writhed.

  "No!" He tried to shake them off.

  They were inexorable, slithering, splitting apart, reforming . . .

  He couldn't see his knee anymore. He couldn't feel his thigh. Parts of him . . . weren't there.

  And at last he understood. The blackness was obliterating him. Him, George Oberlin. He was dead. It didn't matter that he had power, that he had money.

  He was dead.

  That was his body. This was his grave. He had faced some of the people he had killed. Now the darkness would take him.

  He screamed.

  The darkness gave a yank.

  He flayed his arms. He toppled. He screamed again. The ground came up to meet his face. He clawed at the grass, but he couldn't feel it.

  He opened his mouth to scream again, but he didn't have a mouth, and it wouldn't matter if he did. There was no sound. Everything was gone. All light, all language. Every dream, every thought. Every sense . . . evaporated.

  Himself. His soul. Banished.

  George Oberlin faded into eternal night.

  TWENTY-FIVE

  Teague came awake to the shriek of the ambulance and a single thought.

  Was she okay? Was Kate okay?

  He had a vague recollection of seeing Oberlin with a gun, of seeing Kate shoot him, of staggering around a graveyard with people. . . .

  Kate's family.

  Was she okay?

  The strain of trying to remember made his brain feel as if it were bursting. Each rut in the road rattled his bones; some guy in blue fatigues stuck a needle in his arm.

  Teague exploded into action. "You aren't going to drug me, you bastard. Let me go, I've got to save her!" Before she got shot. Before he had to face the results of his incompetence. His stupidity. For years and years . . all those years, and this time it would be worse. So much worse.

  "Teague, stop it right now!" A face appeared over the top of him.

  "Kate?" It was Kate. She was beautiful. She looked healthy.

  She looked stern. "You're hurt, and they're trying to help you. We're going to transfer to the helicopter to go to Austin, but you've got to calm down."

  A needle pricked his arm. He could still feel the pain, but as if it was someone else's. The most wonderful sense of well-being lifted him. "Kate, I love you."

  "Sh." She place her cool hand on his hot cheek. "Not too long now."

  He did love her. What a fool he had been not to realize it sooner. What else should he tell her? Oh. He knew. "Will you marry me?"

  Her lips moved, but now, although he heard the words, he couldn't comprehend what she said. Yet he did comprehend one thing. She had only just found her family, yet she had remained with him. She was coming to the hospital with him.

  He relaxed against the stretcher. He let the paramedics torture him with needles and bandages.

  Because he'd saved Kate. She was alive and unharmed.

  For once in his life, he had stopped the bullet and saved the woman he loved.

  Kate stood alone in the hospital waiting room, rubbing her arms and wishing somebody, anybody would come out of that door and tell her Teague was going to be all right. She knew he was alive. But she'd never seen so much blood.

  Wooziness struck her, and she staggered to the drinking fountain. She bent down, put her face in the stream of water, and hoped none of the other people in the waiting room had noticed.

  As the faintness subsided, Kate stood. Leaning her hand against the wall, she stared at her feet.

  Teague had been irrational in the ambulance, trying to hit the paramedics and shouting. She'd calmed him down enough for them to give him his medication, but dear God. So much blood. And then .

  She wanted her mother.

  Kate rubbed her forehead hard.

  She wanted her mother, and she was going to get her whole family. They'd been nice at the cemetery, introducing themselves, petting her as if she were a long-lost dog. But Kate didn't know them. Hope and Pepper, Dan and Zack, Gabriel...

  Who were they really? She didn't remember any of them. They couldn't comfort her right now any more than the strangers who sat in the waiting room or the cowed volunteer who manned the sign-in desk or the callous nurse who ran the ER like a drill sergeant. Kate wanted her mother.

  "Darling!" The beloved, familiar voice spoke from the doorway. "We came as fast as we could."

  Kate jerked her head up. "Mom!"

  Her mother hurried into the waiting room and took Kate into her arms. "How is he? Is it bad?"

  "I don't know." Kate let her head drop onto her mother's shoulder. "Oh, M-Mom." Kate's first sob broke forth. "I'm afraid he's going to d-die from saving me."

  Gentle hands clasped Kate, clasped her mom, led them both to a couch.

  "The bullet sliced through his scalp," a man's voice said. "It's probably not serious."

  Kate lifted her head.

  Everyone was here. Her whole family. Surrounding her and her mom.

  She looked at the man who had spoken. Dark eyes, blond hair, tanned, tough-looking. He was related to her.

  Right now, she couldn't remember his name.

  "That's Dan, my hus
band. He's a rancher and a former terrorist hunter." Kate's sister seemed to recognize Kate's confusion. Pepper recognized Kate's confusion. Black, curly hair, green eyes, a face that should, in years past, have led Kate into mischief.

  "Probably?" Kate choked.

  "Dan's not a doctor, but he's seen a lot of wounds," Hope spoke. Kate's other sister. Brown hair, blue eyes, a face that made Kate feel as if she'd come home.

  "He was . . . was fighting them." Tears welled in Kate's eyes. Impatiently, she brushed them away. She couldn't see, and she needed to see, to hear, to be alert in case the doctor came out to report on Teague. "The paramedics. He was fighting them. I got him calmed d-down. Th-they gave him a painkiller, and all of a s-sudden, his eyes rolled back in his head and he was uncon . . . unconscious."

  Mom kept her arm around Kate's shoulder.

  "I've seen a lot of bullet wounds, had a few, too, and being unconscious is not necessarily a bad thing," Dan said.

  "The paramedics thought it was. They jumped on him, started oxygen and . . . I don't know what they were doing." Kate took a long, wobbly breath.

  Hope turned to her husband. "Zack, can you find out what's going on?"

  Zack—black hair streaked with silver, dark eyes, distinguished-looking—nodded, patted Kate's shoulder, and strode toward the desk where Godzilla the Monster Nurse reigned with contempt and disinterest.

  "Don't worry, Caitlin, people tell Zack what he wants to know." Gabriel spoke. Kate's foster brother. Dark hair, green eyes. Handsome.

  "She wouldn't talk to me." Kate's voice still wobbled abominably, and she never took her gaze off Zack. "She wouldn't tell me anything."

  Zack spoke to Godzilla, and when she answered scornfully, he put his hands flat on the desk, leaned over, and spoke again.

  Godzilla straightened. Without removing her gaze from Zack, she picked up the phone and made a call. She took notes, then handed them to Zack, explained them, and watched as he strode back to the waiting family.

  "How did he do that?" Kate whispered.

  "You should have seen him calling in a helicopter for us so we could follow you here." Marilyn sounded awed. "He has a way of addressing people that makes them want to help him."

  "It's the result of having way too much money all his life," Hope said.

  Zack walked up. "The bullet creased Teague's skull. He's in shock. He has a concussion. That's why he's unconscious."

  "Is he going to be all right?" Kate asked.

  "She wouldn't say a word about that. She said she's not allowed. But she sort of nodded, so I assume the prognosis is good. Or at least not bad." Zack nodded, too, in satisfaction.

  The relief was so strong, Kate closed her eyes and put her head back on her mother's shoulder.

  "Thank God!" Hope made the words more than an exclamation. They were a prayer.

  "Yes, thank God." Kate's mother rubbed Kate's back in that mom like manner that comforted her so much.

  "Teague's in ICU," Zack said. "Kate, you can see him. The doctor's coming to walk you down and fill you in."

  Kate stood at once.

  Her mom remained sitting, her hand still in Kate's.

  "That nurse told me only relatives could see Teague." Kate kept her gaze on the door. "I told her there weren't any relatives. She said she guessed he wouldn't have visitors then."

  Everyone looked toward the nurse in horror. Not a muscle moved on Zack's face. "I convinced her otherwise."

  At that moment, Kate realized how protectively the family hovered around her. Her family. Until four hours ago, Kate hadn't heard their names since she was ten months old. Now they were here. They were anxious— about Kate. About their little sister.

  It was odd and wonderful and . . . just odd.

  But she didn't have time to think about it, because a tired-looking woman in a white coat stepped into the room. "Miss Montgomery?"

  Kate hurried toward her.

  "Hi, I'm Dr. Kahn." The doctor shook Kate's hand. "You can see Mr. Ramos, but I warn you, he's very still and very pale."

  On the way to ICU, Dr. Kahn assured Kate the bullet had barely touched Teague's skull, but any contact between a bullet and the head made her unhappy. Still, she thought he would recover with no problem except for some crushing headaches. She warned Kate that the bruising from the accident and the bullet looked worse than it was. She led Kate to the bed, where Teague was connected to tubes, monitors, and printers that spat forth unintelligible gibberish, and admonished, "Ten minutes only."

  His stillness hit Kate like a blow. She was used to seeing him vital, responsive, and so alive that a current of awareness always arced between them. Now he was pale, his purpling bruises showing beneath the white bandages that wrapped his skull. "Oh, Teague," she whispered. Carefully she took his hand. It lay limp in hers. "Teague, listen. I love you. I want you to be awake so I can tell you. Teague, I love you."

  He squeezed her fingers. Just the slightest pressure.

  And one of his monitors went off.

  Dr. Kahn and a nurse hurried toward the bed. Dr. Kahn looked at the readout, then lifted Teague's eyelids, and shone her flashlight in his pupils. She smiled. "Well. Good."

  "Is he conscious?" Kate asked.

  "No, but he won't be unconscious forever."

  The satisfaction in Dr. Kahn's voice made Kate straighten. "Was there a chance of that?"

  "We're talking modern medicine and the human brain. There's always a chance for anything." Dr. Kahn put her flashlight away. "Five minutes, and keep talking to him."

  When Kate walked back into the waiting room, the family, her family, assaulted her with questions. "How did he look?" "What did the doctor say?" "Do you feel better now?"

  Kate told them the whole story, and when she was finished, her family indulged in a discreet celebration that made Godzilla say, in chilling tones, "Other families are here, and their less fortunate circumstances should be considered."

  "She's right." Gabriel herded them toward the door. "Come on. I scouted out this floor. There's a patio this way for patient and visitor use."

  Godzilla's glare made them feel like guilty schoolchildren.

  As they escaped, Pepper gave a muffled snort. Hope snickered. Soon the whole group shook with guilty, suppressed laughter as they made their way toward the glass doors that led outside onto a roof garden. There dim lights shone on the few hardy potted plants that struggled for life against the chill wind.

  Dan and Gabriel held the doors while Kate and her sisters stepped outside. Then their hilarity burst forth. They giggled together, saying things like, "Did you see her?" "I thought she was going to breathe fire."

  They hiccuped to a halt. Their gazes met.

  Family. The truth began to sink into Kate. These were her sisters. She had a family.

  "She looks so much like Mama," Pepper said in an awed voice.

  "We would have found her eventually." With shaking fingers, Hope pushed Kate's hair away from her face. "She would have become a national reporter and when we saw her, we would have known."

  "Thank you for . . ." Kate hardly knew what to say. They remembered her. She didn't remember them, and she didn't know how to deal with the obviously wrenching emotions her sisters experienced. Feeling awkward and out of kilter, she said, "Thank you for looking for me. For never giving up. When I think of all the years you spent, I can't believe it. You were so strong."

  "You were our baby. We had to find you," Hope said.

  Kate glanced at the three guys. They still hadn't come out. They were still bunched together holding the doors, and they looked uncomfortable and unhappy— men caught between two conflicting currents of emotion and uncomfortable with them both.

  "Where's Mom? Where's my mother?" Kate looked inside, and there stood her mother, watching Kate with her sisters and wiping silent tears off her cheeks.

  "Mom?" Kate started back inside.

  "Oh, no!" Hope said. "We forgot about your mother."

  "We're shits, all happy to see each oth
er while we neglect her." Pepper sounded disgusted.

  Kate threw her arms around her mom's neck. "What's wrong? Why are you crying?"

  "I feel so h-horrible." Mom could scarcely speak. "All these y-years, I d-deprived you of this wonderful f-family and them of y-you. It's all m-my fault."

  Hope followed and elbowed Kate aside. "Your fault? All these years, we've been so afraid for Caitlin. We were afraid she was mistreated. We were afraid she'd been sold into slavery." Hope choked up. She shook her head as she unsuccessfully tried to speak again.

  Pepper picked up where Hope left off. "We were afraid she was dead. Now we discover this beautiful, wonderful woman is our sister, and she's had a happy life, and we're so happy and so relieved. So yes, it's your fault she grew up happy, and we love you for it. You're part of our family now."

  Kate wanted to kiss them both. Mom was still crying, but she was smiling, too. She opened her arms. "I'd be honored to be part of your family."

  Kate didn't know how to be a sister. Not to anyone— not to these women, not to those men. But at the moment Hope and Pepper embraced Mom, Kate embraced the family.

  The Prescotts were once again a family.

  Six days later, Teague watched Kate walk into his hospital room. At the sight of him in his leather jacket and his jeans and running shoes, her eyes widened. Her smile blossomed. She seemed so damned happy to see him.

  Well. He could cure that.

  She wore blue jeans, a long-sleeved white T-shirt, and a hideous brown, blue, and orange thigh-length knit cardigan that he wouldn't have given to the poor.

  She looked . . . beautiful.

  His breath caught, and the headache that nagged at his brain—and that he always denied having—worsened.

  "You're dressed!" she said.

  "And ready to go." He picked up his suitcase and headed toward the door. "More than ready to go."

  "You can't just walk out of here." She caught his arm. "The nurse will bring a wheelchair."

  Her touch seared him like a lightning bolt. Didn't she know . . . ? Didn't she realize . . . ? Every time she brushed her lips against his, every time she slid her arm beneath his shoulders, he burned with need.