Cody Walker's Woman (30 page)

One corner of D’Arcy’s mouth lifted up in a half smile. He shook his head. “Don’t worry, Walker. I had no intention of applying special rule eight. It won’t be easy, but this case is going to trial.”

Cody sighed with relief as a huge weight lifted off his shoulders. Not that his job was safe, but that he hadn’t been wrong about D’Arcy after all.

But D’Arcy wasn’t finished. He said softly, “And it’s not the end of your career with the agency. Just the end of being a special agent.”

Cody’s brows drew together, puzzled. “I don’t follow you.”

“You can’t be a special agent if you’re sitting behind this desk.”

Stunned, Cody said, “What?”

“I’ve been waiting years for someone with enough courage and conviction to buck me on special rule eight...and the guts and determination to make it stick. I knew when the agency first crafted it that special rule eight was too broad, too vague. But I trusted myself to know when and how to apply it...and when not to. I just needed to find someone else I could trust knew it, too.” Now both corners of D’Arcy’s mouth lifted in the beginning of a real smile. “I thought all along it might be you.”

“You’re leaving the agency?”

D’Arcy chuckled. “Hardly. But the head of the agency in Washington wants to retire next year. He’s been pressuring me to become his deputy, preparatory to taking over the whole organization when he retires. I just couldn’t do it until I found a replacement for me here.”

Cody still couldn’t believe it. “Me? Become you?”

D’Arcy threw back his head and let out a belly laugh. “No, Walker,” he said when he finally stopped laughing. “That would be a mistake on both our parts. You can’t be me, and you shouldn’t even try. But you
can
make the job you. That’s all I did when I started. That’s all anyone
can
do.” He paused for a minute. “So, what do you think? Are you willing to give it a shot?”

Cody took a quick turn around the room. He’d come in here thinking his career with the agency was over, and now...unexpectedly...he was being offered the opportunity of a lifetime, a chance to head up the Denver branch of the agency. The one who had the final authority, but also the crushing responsibility.

Could he do it? And even if he
could,
did he
want
to do it?

“The agency needs people like you to run it,” D’Arcy stated, as if he sensed Cody’s dilemma. “There aren’t many absolutely incorruptible people, but you’re one of them.”

Cody smiled faintly as he remembered when he’d said the same thing to himself...about D’Arcy. If D’Arcy believed he could do it, how could he turn it down?

Then he remembered Keira and frowned. No. If he were in charge of the Denver branch, it would be impossible for her to work here, and he couldn’t do that to her. She loved both her job and him. If he asked her to choose, she’d be torn, but he knew she would choose him. He just couldn’t ask that of her. Not now. Not ever.

It was a tough decision, but...

“If you’re thinking about Special Agent Jones,” D’Arcy said, reading the play of expressions over Cody’s face, “I have an idea about that.”

“How did you know I—” Cody began.

“It’s my business to know everything,” D’Arcy said, his grin lighting his face. “Didn’t you know? Why do you think they call me Baker Street behind my back?” He waited for that to sink in before adding, “And soon it will be your business to know everything, too.”

Cody shook his head firmly. “I can’t ask Keira to give up her career with the agency. And even if I could, she’s too damned good at what she does. The agency needs people like her, too.”

D’Arcy nodded. “With her skills at research and analysis, that’s just what I was thinking. But there’s a way around that. What if she worked directly for me—” He held up one hand as Cody started to interrupt. “Just hear me out, Walker. What if she worked directly for me, but on detached status...here in Denver?”

Cody’s heart thudded suddenly, as he realized it just might work. “Permanently?”

“As permanent as I can make it.”

He considered the offer from every angle and couldn’t see a flaw. “She’ll have to agree first,” he said, already knowing in his heart what her answer would be.
We can have it all,
he thought suddenly, wanting nothing more than to see Keira’s expression when he told her, and his smile lit up his face.

“Then it’s a done deal.” D’Arcy held out his hand, and Cody shook it. “Welcome to your new job.”

* * *

The door to Keira’s hospital room swung open, and she turned her head toward it eagerly, hoping against hope that this time it was Cody. He hadn’t been near her for three days, and she missed him so much it was like a physical ache...worse than the one in her chest because there was nothing the nurses could give her to alleviate the pain in her heart. A tall blonde walked through the door, and the eager light in Keira’s eyes faded.
Mandy Callahan.

The last time Keira had seen Mandy she’d been wearing a sling containing her dark-haired baby daughter, with her two blond sons at her side. Now she was alone, and even more stunningly beautiful than Keira remembered. “Hi,” she said, knowing without being told why the other woman was here. But she didn’t want thanks for doing her job. She just wanted...

“Ryan’s been like a bear with a sore head,” Mandy said out of the blue. “He’s mad at me for asking you to protect him, and he’s mad at you for doing it.” She laughed a little but with a touch of hysterical relief thrown in, and Keira couldn’t help but smile.

“Cody told me once that your husband was a tad old-school.
I
said he’s a dinosaur.”

Mandy moved toward the bed. “You’re right, he
is
a dinosaur. But he’s
my
dinosaur.” A glitter of silver sparkled in her eyes, and she blinked several times to hold back the tears. “And I...I just had to thank you for saving his life.”

Keira started to shrug, but the stabbing pain in her chest radiated to her right shoulder, stopping her. “It was my job,” she said quietly.

Mandy surveyed her for a moment. “No, you don’t want gratitude, do you? Not mine, not Ryan’s. All you want is respect.” At Keira’s sharply indrawn breath, Mandy added, “For what it’s worth, you have it. After Ryan told me what happened, he said, ‘In my whole life no one’s ever taken a bullet for me.’ It shocked him, I think. Not just that someone would do it, and not just that a woman would. But that
you
would.”

Something in Mandy’s voice told Keira everything she needed to know about her. “You would have done it, too,” she said. “You would have taken that bullet for him.”

Mandy nodded slowly. “And he knows it. But I love him. You don’t. That’s the difference between us. I would do it for Ryan and my children in a heartbeat. But I don’t know if I could have done what you did for someone I didn’t love. I don’t think I could. But Ryan could. Cody, too. They’re protectors...just like you.”

Keira couldn’t help the way her pulse kicked up a notch at the mention of Cody’s name, but the respect in Mandy’s eyes warmed her to the core. “Thanks,” she said gruffly.

Mandy edged backward toward the door. “That’s all I really came to say. I didn’t want to intrude, but I just had to—”

The door to Keira’s room opened again, and Cody walked in. Keira didn’t say anything, but she didn’t have to—she knew everything she was feeling was written on her face.

“Time’s up,” he told Mandy, but he smiled to soften the order.

Mandy smiled in return, then leaned up and brushed a kiss against his cheek. “Thanks for letting me go first,” she said. She cast one more glowing smile in Keira’s direction, then went out quickly.

* * *

Cody stood with his back to the door, watching the warm color come and go in Keira’s face, loving it. Loving everything about her. She looked a thousand times better than the last time he’d seen her, still in intensive care, but safely out of danger.

“Miss me?” he asked as lightly as he could, his heart racing at the terrible memories he would never be able to blot out. Not completely. He crossed the room to the left side of the bed before she realized he’d even moved. Then he was cupping her face in his hands, turning it up to his for an endless kiss. When his lips finally left hers, all he could manage was a husky, “Yeah. You missed me. Almost as much as I missed you.”

“Where were you? I—” She chopped off the rest of her sentence, as if she didn’t want to betray to him just how abandoned she’d felt, even though he knew she’d had visitors—the twenty-four hour guard on her door had kept a detailed list. Her mom had been there every day—she’d flown up from Denver as soon as she’d heard the news—and a few close friends, including some ex-marine buddies, had driven up to see her. And all four of her brothers had called several times to check up on her. Cody had kept a close enough tab on Keira to know about every visitor, every caller.

But he knew it wasn’t enough. Not for an agent. He’d been in a hospital bed just like this one for more days than he cared to remember while the world moved on without him, and the not knowing had driven him crazy. “We still had things to wrap up,” he told her. “I couldn’t just leave it to Callahan, McKinnon and Holmes to pick up all the pieces by themselves, especially after Danvers finally talked.”

“Oh,” she said. “I wondered. But there wasn’t anyone I could ask.”

“After the night you were shot, after his brothers were killed, I think Danvers was more afraid of us than he was of Vishenko. He gave us enough to go on. And it turns out the FBI had a little something up their sleeves, too, where Vishenko was concerned.” He smiled ruefully. “You were right about that. We
are
on the same side. Once Holmes and I had a heart-to-heart talk...we were able to put a lot of things together.”

He drew her left hand to his lips and kissed it. “Where was I? Oh, yeah. We arrested Vishenko yesterday, along with New York’s junior senator and a half dozen others. And that’s just the start. Vishenko’s not talking—surprise, surprise—but the senator sang like a canary. Guess being a former FBI agent, he knew when to cut his losses and cut a deal.”

She searched his face. “So it’s all over?”

“I wish. The agency and the FBI have put together a task force. As soon as you’re well enough, you’ll be on it—Holmes was damned impressed with what you’d uncovered, and he pretty much insisted.” He laughed softly, shaking his head. “He’s a little suspicious about how you came across certain FBI documents, but I’m sure you’ll manage to gloss that over.”

Keira laughed a little at that, too. “I’ll think of something,” she said.

Cody’s expression turned serious again as he toyed with her fingers. “Part of me would like to ask you never to do this to me again, but—”

“You can’t,” she interrupted, trying to pull her hand away from his. “You can’t ask me to—”

“I’m not,” he told her, firmly retaining her hand and letting his respect and pride shine through his eyes. And his concern. “I’m not asking you to be less than you are.” One corner of his mouth twitched into a half smile. “But I wouldn’t be human if I didn’t want to protect you from everything. Don’t ask
me
to be less than the man I am.”

“Oh.” Color rose in her cheeks, and Cody was satisfied they understood each other.

“We’ve got a long road ahead of us building our case,” he said, as if the conversation had never detoured into their personal lives. “And there are more arrests in the works. We still don’t know who was following me, or who set the bombs on the East Coast or in Denver. Danvers couldn’t tell us. But he and his brothers are the ones who rigged Callahan’s SUV, and they’re the ones who killed Tressler, on orders of the man who was their go-between with Vishenko—he’s one of the ones we arrested yesterday. If we can get him to roll on Vishenko...we’ll have to see about that. And the trials could take years, so I’m not holding my breath.”

“But you’re safe now? You, Callahan, Trace and D’Arcy?”

A muscle twitched in his cheek. “Safe is a relative term. Without Vishenko bankrolling things...yeah, we’re safer. But I won’t lie to you—we’ll never be
safe
as long as we live. There’s always the chance that...” He left it at that, knowing he didn’t have to fill in the details. “How’s the injury?” he asked, changing the subject as he leaned against the side of the hospital bed.

“It’s there,” she said dryly. “You should know—you went through it yourself.”

Cody chuckled. “Yeah, but the body doesn’t remember the pain—just the
idea
of the pain. And thank God for that. Otherwise, no woman would ever have a second child.”

Their eyes met. Cody caught his breath at the sudden yearning in Keira’s face, and he had the answer to the question he’d wanted to ask her the night they’d made love. She wanted his child...his
children
...with an intensity that equaled his.

“It’s a risk,” he warned her, touching her cheek with fingers that trembled slightly. “Callahan calls them hostages to fortune.”

“But Mandy doesn’t,” Keira told him firmly. “She took that risk for the man she loves. And I will, too.”

Cody’s heart contracted in love and pain. “Are you sure, Keira?” he asked. “I’m willing to risk it if you are, but I couldn’t bear it if someday in the future...if something happened and you blamed me...and stopped loving me...”

She shook her head, and her left hand reached for his right one. “Life is a risk. Love is a risk. We just have to trust in ourselves and each other that we will do everything in our power to keep our children safe.”

Cody swallowed the lump in his throat, remembering all the things he’d told himself he would say to her...if only she survived.
Love me. Need me. Marry me.

He didn’t need to say those things now, because he already knew her answer. Her welcoming kiss had told him that much. But he
had
to ask, “Will you do that, Keira? Will you trust me enough to have my children?”

She looked at him with that solemn expression he knew so well, then smiled her slow smile. It was like a Wyoming sunrise coming up to meet the day—soft, warm, unique. And full of promise. “I will.”