Money Shot (36 page)

 

MOONLIGHT FLOWED through the windowpanes with a creamy clarity as Rush sank onto the couch, spread his arms along the back and closed his eyes.

“Well,” he said. “Some night.”

“Yeah.” Maria stood in front of the woodstove and watched him, her heart a clenched fist inside her chest. “Are you going to be all right?”

“Yeah. Sure.” He didn’t open his eyes. “You were right, though. About Einar.”

“I know.” Regret welled up inside her. “I’m so sorry, Rush. I wish I hadn’t been.”

“Yeah. Me, too. Harris said they turned up a couple million in supernotes in his plane.”

“I heard.”

“Anybody claiming rightful ownership?”

“Not willingly. But we cross-referenced Einar’s flight plans with our list of suspected supernote movers and ended up looking at one of those Canadian businessmen Einar flies to all corners of the earth. We’ve long suspected this guy had his fingers in a few less-than-legitimate pies. I guess he offered to share the wealth.”

“Not an offer my cousin was wired to pass up.”

“Harris says he’s been ferrying cash across the border gym bag by gym bag for a couple years now. You were right about the Fire Eaters, by the way. They were Einar’s U.S. contacts.”

Rush squinted at her. “Is that supposed to make me feel better or worse?”

Maria shrugged miserably. “I don’t know. Better in the sense that using Yarrow as a mule was a recent development?”

“But worse in the sense that he was doing this under my nose for years.” Rush put his knuckles to his eyebrows. “And worse yet in the sense that somebody I claim as family could abuse a vulnerable kid so badly. I mean, my God, Maria. He was talking her into suicide so he could skate on this.”

She didn’t say anything. She couldn’t. He leaned forward then, propped his elbows on his knees and stared at his linked fingers. “Thanks, by the way.”

She goggled at him. “For what?”

“For shooting him. For taking that off my plate.” He looked up, an unhappy gratitude in his pale eyes. “Because I wouldn’t have just wounded him the way you did. I might have killed him.” He dropped his head again and snorted. “
Might have
. Fuck me, I would have. I wanted to. When I saw him standing over you like that, I—”

Love for him exploded inside her, and the fist around her heart disintegrated. She fell to her knees in front of him, threw her arms around those bent shoulders and pressed her cheek to his.

“But you didn’t,” she said, and drew back to cradle that hard jaw in her palm. “You didn’t have to. Because I finally got my shit together.”

“It was . . . not together at some point?”

“Rush, come on. You’ve been giving to me nonstop since we met. It’s about damn time I thought to do something for you.” She took his hands and forced herself to meet his eyes. To strip herself naked, banish the static and just give him the words. The truth. “I’m a mess, Rush. I barely know who I am most days, and you not only want me, you want me forever. You asked me to
marry
you. But did I accept? Did I go down on my knees and thank God for the miracle of you? No. I was so worried about what it would cost me to accept your love that I never stopped to wonder what it cost you to offer it.” She shook her head in disgust. “You
love
me, Rush. And that’s a gift. It’s forgiveness and peace and absolution.”

“Your specialty.”

“What?”

“You love people, Maria. Tangibly. I confessed my deepest secret to you, and you told me how the killer that lived in me lived in you, too. Yarrow showed you all the blackness in her soul and you dove in there so you could show her the way to hope again. You loved us in the most concrete sense of the word. How can you be so surprised when we love you back?”

She dropped her forehead to his knee. “Yarrow called me a hypocrite tonight, and she was right. I tried to tell her I was all better, all forgiven, all secure in my happy ending, but she knew I was lying. Because I was too scared to reach for it. To trust it. To trust you. But I’m not anymore.” She stopped, winced. “Oh, fuck it, honesty.” She sucked in a fortifying breath. “Okay, I’m still scared. I’m terrified. But I love you. I love you so much I ache with it, and I’m so happy and afraid and mixed up. But I’m ready to do whatever it takes, risk everything I have, to make this work.”

She shook away the tears she hadn’t exactly planned on shedding and looked up at him with a smile that felt fierce and sharp and brilliant. “You loved me,” she said. “Forgave me.
Saw
me. I was lost and you showed me the way back to myself. I don’t know how, but it hardly matters.” She searched those pale, honest eyes, and found love there. She found faith, forgiveness and hope. She found her future. “Will you marry me?”

And suddenly she was off the floor and onto his lap, being kissed with a slow, greedy thoroughness. She kissed him back while astonished wonder slipped into aching joy.

It was several long, interesting moments before he pulled back and rested his forehead against hers.

“So.” She paused. “That’s a yes?”

“What? No.” Another clinging, endless kiss. “That was clearly an I-need-time-to-consider-my-options kiss. When I give you a yes-I’ll-marry-you kiss, you won’t have to ask. You’ll know.”

Laughter bubbled up alongside the peace and awe and desire pulsing within her. “Honesty, Rush.” She put a grave disapproval into her voice even as she rocked herself into the blatant
yes
in his lap. His breath hitched and she smiled. “This won’t work without your total, complete honesty.”

“Mmm. You’re right.” Then she was underneath him on the old, lumpy couch, his
yes
snugged right up against her glowing heat. His silver eyes laughed down at her. “Okay, I’m going to be honest with you now. Ready?”

She smiled up at him, brilliantly. “I’m ready.”

“Then yes.” His kiss was a miracle of dazzled heat. “Yes.”

She wrapped herself around him and leaped fiercely into her happily-ever-after.

MONEY, HONEY
MONEY SHOT