Explosive Attraction (17 page)

She ran to the
far side of the mausoleum and got down on her knees in front of one of the squares on the bottom row.

Rafe watched her unscrew one of the corners. “Good, faster, babe. Hurry. Three more.”

She nodded, her movements jerky as she worked on the second corner. Then the other two corners. She reached out and tried to pry the marble square off the wall. “It won’t move.”

“Cut the caulking.
Run the blade around the edge. Then kick it if you have to.”

She did as he said, and the square fell onto the concrete floor, cracking in two.

The hairs stood up on the back of Rafe’s neck. A whisper of sound had him jerking around. He dove to the ground just as Sonntag brought a tire iron down where he’d been standing moments before. The tire iron banged against the bars and fell to
the ground.

Darby screamed from inside the mausoleum.

“Get in the hole, Darby! Now!” Rafe yelled. He grabbed for his gun, but Sonntag slammed into him. The gun went flying into the trees.

* * *

S
AVE
MY
BROTHER
.

Darby didn’t know if she could, but she had to try. Rafe had saved her too many times to count. And he was fighting for his life right now—and hers.

She had
to try.

She ran to Nick. “Forgive me,” she whispered. She bit her bottom lip, and slapped Nick hard across the face.

* * *

R
AFE
CIRCLED
S
ONNTAG
, desperately looking for an opening.
Damn it.
He didn’t have time for this.

Darby and Nick didn’t have time for this.

The welcome sound of sirens screamed up the road toward them.

Sonntag waved his knife, laughing. “They won’t
get here in time. Your brother will die, if he isn’t dead already. And so will the girl.” His lip curled in a sneer. “You’re going to find out what it’s like to lose everything that matters to you.”

Like hell he would.

Rafe lunged at him. Sonntag dove out of the way and whirled around, hacking with the deadly blade. Rafe dodged him, but not fast enough. The blade sliced his arm, like
an electric shock shooting across his bicep.

“Don’t worry,” Sonntag said as he stood above him. “I won’t kill you yet. An eye for an eye.” He pulled a phone out of his pocket.

And then Rafe knew. The timer on the bomb was fake. Sonntag wanted to control when the bomb blew, down to the second, to make Rafe suffer. He was going to use the phone to blow the bomb.

Rafe aimed a vicious
kick at the other man’s knee. A loud crack was followed by a howling scream as Sonntag fell to the ground, holding his leg. The phone and knife went skittering across the grass in different directions.

Rafe rolled and came up with the knife, but Sonntag grabbed his foot. Rafe twisted around, slashing down with the blade, stabbing the other man’s arm.

Sonntag’s roar of pain echoed through
the trees but he didn’t let go. He wrapped both his hands around Rafe’s leg and yanked him back. Rafe lost his grip on the knife and fell to the side.

The sirens stopped. Car doors slammed. Voices echoed from the trees.

“Over here!” Rafe yelled.

Sonntag tugged the knife out of his arm. He shimmied away from Rafe, army-crawling across the grass.

Rafe’s right arm hung useless,
blood dripping down his fingers. He spotted Sonntag’s goal, the phone, a few feet away.

“No!” Rafe lunged at Sonntag just as he turned with the knife in one hand, and the phone in the other.

Rafe ignored the knife, reaching for the phone. Burning, tearing pain sucked the air out of his lungs. He landed with a jarring thud. His teeth cracked together. Sonntag’s skull slammed against the
hard ground.

“Here they are,” someone shouted. Another man cursed. “Medic!”

Rafe dragged himself into a sitting position. He clutched the phone in his hand, cradling it against his chest with his good arm. Beside him, Sonntag lay unmoving, staring up at the sky, a tiny line of blood running out of his ear and down his cheek. Rafe didn’t know if the man was alive or dead, and he didn’t
care.

All he cared about was reaching Darby and Nick.

Buresh was suddenly standing over him. “Don’t move. You’re leaking all over the place.”

An EMT knelt beside Rafe and reached for the phone. “I’ll take that, sir.”

Rafe twisted away. “Don’t touch it.” He motioned for one of the bomb techs. “Here.” He handed the phone to him. “Be extremely careful with that. It’s the remote
detonator to the IED inside the mausoleum.”

“You got it. We’ll get the robot.”

“Help me up, Buresh. Darby’s inside with the bomb, and Nick. He’s hurt. We need to get the gate open.”

Buresh hauled him to his feet. The burning pain in Rafe’s chest and arm had him gasping for breath.

“I don’t suppose I can convince you to wait in the ambulance.” Buresh gestured toward the emergency
vehicles lined up on the grass several hundred yards away.

“Not a chance.” He and Buresh followed the bomb squad to the mausoleum. A quick snip with some bolt cutters and the lock gave way.

Rafe rushed inside first, shoving past the others.

Buresh followed behind him, then stopped suddenly, looking around. “I thought Nick and Darby were in here.”

A ragged line of blood zigzagged
across the concrete floor to an opening in the mausoleum wall. “I didn’t think she’d really do it,” Rafe said. “I didn’t think she
could
do it. I didn’t...” He rushed forward, ignoring the burning pain across his ribs. He squatted in front of the square.

“What are you talking about?” Buresh knelt beside him.

Rafe braced himself for what he was about to see. Darby was probably comatose
by now, being shoved up in that dark hole. And Nick... Rafe didn’t even want to admit to himself what he knew deep inside. There was so much blood.

“Give me some light in here,” he rasped, trying to see inside the hole.

Buresh waved at one of the bomb techs who was examining the pipe bomb. The tech unclipped a flashlight from his utility belt and handed it to Buresh.

He clicked
it on, pointing it into the hole.

Rafe peered inside. In the cold, dark tomb, two very green eyes blinked back at him. Darby raised her hand to shield her eyes, bumping her elbow in the tight space as she jackknifed around to look at him.

“Hurry, Rafe,” she ordered. “The knife moved when I pulled Nick in here. I can’t stop the bleeding.”

He swallowed against the lump rising in his
throat. “You crawled in a dark hole. You pulled Nick inside?”

She grinned. “I did! He helped a little. I slapped him like you told me to.”

He would have laughed, but his heart was pounding so hard at the thought of how close she’d come to being killed that he couldn’t speak.

“The bomb didn’t explode,” Darby said. “We didn’t turn into pink clouds.”

Rafe shuddered. He yelled
at his fellow bomb techs. “Load and go. We’ve got wounded here. Let’s get them out. Now!”

Chapter Eighteen

Darby wiped her palms on her slacks. She stared at the hospital room door and tried to work up the nerve to knock. She hadn’t seen Rafe or Nick since yesterday, when they’d been taken away in the ambulance. After everything that had happened, why was she so afraid to open the door to their room?

She knew why. Because with the bomber dead, she had no excuses
anymore to be with Rafe. Once she thanked him and said goodbye, she would go back to her life. He would go back to his. Instead of lovers, they’d be adversaries again.

No, that wasn’t true. She’d never think of him as her adversary again. Because she was pathetically, hopelessly in love with him. That realization had slammed into her when she watched him being carted off in the ambulance.
The sight of all that blood had nearly driven her to her knees, because it was Rafe’s blood. But what good was it to realize you were in love with someone, when they weren’t in love with you?

“Miss, do you need something?” A nurse paused in the hallway, a curious smile on her face.

“No, I’m... I was going to say hello to Detective Morgan, but I think maybe he’s sleeping. I’ll come back
later.”

“Have you knocked?”

“No. Wait, don’t—”

The nurse rapped on the door.

“Come in,” Rafe’s deep voice called out from inside.

“He’s awake,” the nurse said, holding the door open. “Go on in.”

Panic rooted Darby in place. “I’ve changed my mind. I—”

“I can hear you, Darby,” Rafe said in a loud voice. “Get in here.”

Darby wanted to kick the nurse. She forced
a smile instead. “Thank you.”

“Have a nice visit.” The nurse headed back down the hall.

“Darby?” Rafe repeated, sounding annoyed.

Darby drew a deep, bracing breath, and entered the room.

“It’s about time you came to see me,” Rafe said from his hospital bed.

Darby stepped to his side. She glanced at Nick, lying in the other bed in their shared room.

“Don’t worry about
him,” Rafe said. “He’s asleep.”

“No, I’m not.” Nick winced and opened his eyes. “I wish I were. You’d think the nurses were paying for the morphine out of their own pockets, as stingy as they are with it. I’m in pain here.”

“Suck it up and shut up,” Rafe growled. “Darby, come closer.”

She bristled at his order. “You’re still too bossy.”

“And you’re still too stubborn.” His
expression softened. “So stubborn you pushed through your fears and did the impossible. You saved my brother. Thank you.”

Her face heated and she glanced at Nick. He propped his arms behind his head and didn’t bother to pretend he wasn’t watching their exchange with interest.

“I didn’t save him. The bomb didn’t explode.”

“You still get credit. Tell her thank-you, Nick.”

“Thank
you, darlin’, from the bottom of my heart.” He rubbed his chin. “Although, if there’s ever a next time, I’d appreciate it if you wouldn’t hit me quite so hard to get my attention. I think you cracked my jaw.” He winked as if to let her know he was teasing.

Darby nodded, feeling uncomfortable with the praise. “I’m just glad you’re both going to be okay. I heard you were both extremely lucky.”

“You do realize I was stabbed, right?” Nick asked in a grumbling tone.

“So was Rafe. In his arm and his chest.”

Nick snorted. “He had a scratch across his ribs, hardly a stab wound. He might have gotten more stitches than me, but I’m the one who had a knife in the gut.” He grinned. “I know what will make me feel better, though. Come here, Darby.”

She started to cross to him
but Rafe grabbed her hand. “I don’t think so.”

Darby glanced between the two brothers, wondering what she’d missed. Rafe glared at Nick. Nick looked as though he was about to burst into laughter.

“Well, I...ah, wanted to thank you,” she told Rafe.

He raised a brow. “Thank me?”

Why was he making this so hard? “Yes, thank you. You saved me, again. You’ve risked your life countless
times for me now. I’ll never be able to repay you for that.”

His jaw tightened. “I don’t want your gratitude.”

“You don’t?”

“No, I don’t. I want—”

A knock sounded on the door. It opened to reveal a petite woman, the same woman Darby had seen in the pictures on Nick’s bookshelf. Rafe and Nick’s mother.

The woman let out an excited shriek. “They’re both in here. Come on.”
She waved her hand and the room seemed to fill all at once with people talking and laughing and crying.

More people poured into the room, and Darby found herself pushed back to the corner by the door. She waited through the tears and hugs, trying to catch a glimpse of Rafe again, but there were too many people. And as usual, everyone around her was taller than she was.

Maybe it was better
this way. No prolonged goodbye. No awkward conversation.

She pulled the door open and stepped into the hall. Her feet dragged, even though she should have been relieved to leave. This hospital held no good memories for her. Rafe didn’t need her. And Mindy... Darby swallowed against the tightness in her throat. Poor Mindy had a long, hard recovery ahead of her and had been moved to a rehab
facility. There was no reason for Darby to want to stay.

She moved toward the elevators at the end of the hall. But when she passed one of the waiting rooms, a familiar voice had her pausing at the doorway.

Jake.

He was wearing his hospital gown because he was still a patient. Was he sitting in the waiting room, working up his nerve to see Rafe? Darby stiffened when she realized
who was sitting beside Jake—the reporter Robert Ellington. The same reporter whose sloppy reporting had poisoned the relationship between Jake and Rafe.

Darby marched into the waiting room.

Five minutes later, she stepped out the door, feeling very satisfied with how things had turned out. She stopped at the elevator. When the doors opened, Captain Buresh was standing there.

He
smiled and shook her hand. “Dr. Steele. Going home already?”

Home. A week ago that would have sounded good. Today it just sounded...lonely. “I guess I am. Thank you for everything.”

“Wait a minute. I have something for you. I was hoping to catch you.” He dug into his jacket pocket and pulled out a sheaf of papers.

“What is this?” Darby asked.

“Rafe called when you two were
at his cabin. He asked if I could have one of the guys look up something for him. With everything going on, I forgot about it, but he called me this morning before the sun came up and asked me whether I had the information yet. So here I am.” He handed the papers to her. “You take care, Dr. Steele.” He saluted her and headed down the hall, toward Nick and Rafe’s hospital room.

More than anything
Darby wanted to follow him, to see Rafe one more time. Instead, she shoved the papers into her purse and stepped into the elevator.

Once she was in her car, she took the papers out, curious what Rafe had thought was so important that he’d called Buresh about it this morning.

She unfolded the stack, and immediately stilled. The first page was a photocopy of an old newspaper story. The
headline read Local Girl Found in Well After Exhaustive Search. And underneath it was a picture of her, twenty-six years ago.

Search? She didn’t remember anyone searching for her. And they hadn’t found her. She’d clawed her own way out.

Hadn’t she?

She scanned the story, and the next one, and the next one, and by the time she was done, tears were flowing down her face so hard she
couldn’t see to read anymore.

* * *

“W
HY
DIDN
’
T
YOU
EVER
tell me the truth, Mom?” Darby squeezed her mother’s hand on the bench beside her. The front porch of her parents’ modest home was finally empty except for the two of them. The rest of her family—her father, her brothers and sisters, their wives, husbands, children—had all rushed over in an impromptu family reunion when they found
out the prodigal daughter had returned.

Not one of them had judged her, or berated her for having ignored them for over a decade.

Her mother gave her a watery smile. “It took years of therapy just to get you to talk again after falling into that well. The doctors said not to push, not to try to get you to tell us anything, that you’d tell us in your own time, on your own terms.”

Darby shook her head. “All these years, I thought no one looked for me. I made up my own story, that I’d climbed out of the well on my own. That no one came for me.” She looked at the little white lines on her fingers.

Her mother smoothed the lines. “You tried to climb out but you couldn’t. Your daddy is the one who found you. You’d wandered off miles into the woods.”

“It must have all
been a dream, terrible and wonderful at the same time. I dreamed I was with Grandma, and I wandered off. But Grandma—”

“Died a year before you fell down that well.”

Darby stared out at the cars lined up and down the street. She was surrounded by love. She’d always been loved and had never realized it. She’d been blind to what she had, and had never known what she’d lost.

Until now.

Darby wasn’t wealthy, but she had plenty of money. Her parents had far less than her, yet they were far happier than she’d ever been. The misery Darby remembered wasn’t misery because of how little they had. It was their misery that their daughter couldn’t be happy, that she had withdrawn from her own family and had built a fake world to retreat into so she could cope.

“I love you, Mom.”

“I know.”

The front yard began to fill with her family. One by one they drifted from the backyard, giving her tentative smiles, standing in groups or watching the children play.

Darby’s oldest brother leaned down and kissed his wife.

Darby’s heart squeezed in her chest.

“Honey,” her mother said, “you have to stop blaming yourself. Everything turned out fine. You’re here
now. Today is a happy day.”

“I know I should be grateful. And I am, but so much has happened, so much you don’t know about.” She gave her mother a fierce hug, then pulled back. “Did you hear about that warehouse explosion over a week ago?”

“Where the assistant district attorney was killed?”

Darby swallowed hard. “Yes. That was an awful day. And I was there.” She began to tell the
story, starting with the moment Rafe Morgan had burst into her office. As she spoke, her family gathered closer, listening with rapt attention. Halfway through, her mom gave her an odd look and went inside the house.

“Go on,” Darby’s father urged her. “What happened next?”

By the time Darby finished telling everything, her mother was back on the porch, and there wasn’t a dry eye in her
entire family, except for Darby. She’d cried so much she didn’t think she had a drop of moisture left for even one more tear.

Her father pulled her into a tight hug. “You’re lucky to be alive, young lady.”

Darby hugged him back. “I know. Rafe saved me.”

Her mother shoved in between them and cupped Darby’s face in her hands. “Answer me one question. Are you in love with Detective
Rafe Morgan?”

Darby’s face heated and she glanced at her family gathered around her.

“Mom, I can’t—”

“Do you love him? One simple question, young lady. I could hear it in your voice the entire time you were telling your story. The answer is obvious to me and everyone else, but you need to admit it to yourself.”

“It doesn’t matter how I feel. He doesn’t love me.”

“Darby.”

“Yes, yes, okay? Yes, I’m in love with a man who doesn’t love me.”

Her mother grinned and stepped to the side. “Everyone, move out of the way.” Her mother waved them back.

“Mom, what are you...” Darby gasped and her hand flew to her throat.

Rafe stood at the bottom of the steps, his right arm in a sling, staring up at her. Now she knew why her mom had gone inside. She’d meddled,
had called Rafe. Darby didn’t know what her mom had said to him to get him to come here, and she was too afraid to hope.

“Rafe,” she choked out. “What are you doing here? You should be in the hospital.”

“I’m still a cop, Darby Steele.”

Her hopes plummeted. “And I’m still a therapist.”

He climbed the first step. “I’m still going to put as many criminals as I can behind bars.”

Darby stiffened. “And I’m still going to fight you every chance I get. Nothing has changed.”

Rafe climbed another step. “
Everything
has changed. Before I knew you...before I
really
knew you, I didn’t understand. I never considered people’s pasts, what they’d been through, what they’d suffered. I never considered that criminals might be victims, too.” He raised a hand as if to stop any
crazy thoughts she might be having. “I still think most of those criminals should do hard time. But now I’m willing to
consider
both sides.”

He climbed another step.

Darby stood and crossed to the top step, but even with him a step below her, she had to crane her neck up to look him in the eyes. “You didn’t answer my question. Why are you here?”

“I would have chosen you.”

“What?”

“Remember what you said in my car, about Batman having to choose between saving two different people? It doesn’t matter who the other person is. If I had to choose, to save someone else or to save you, I would always choose you.”

“Oh, that’s so sweet,” one of Darby’s sisters whispered next to her.

Darby elbowed her in the ribs. “You still haven’t answered my question. Why
are you here?”

He lifted his hand to cup her face. “You left the hospital in the middle of our conversation.”

She looked around at her family, her face flushing even hotter. Every one of them was staring at her. “Fine,” she said. “What else did you have to say?”

“You’re not going to make this easy, are you?”

“Make what easy?”

“This, I needed to tell you this.” He pulled
her against him and gave her a blistering hot kiss, right on the porch steps, in front of her mom, her dad, her entire family.