Page 20

He was still trying to unclench his muscles when Lexi’s laughter came through the crisp cold air like the clearest bell ringing from the steeple of a country church.

He turned, battling a sheepish grin of his own that refused to be contained. “Oh, so you think that’s funny?”

She stood in front of the camper, nodding hard. “Of course not,” she managed to say. “I’m just overcome with gratitude that you saved me from that killer buck.”

Romano stuffed the gun into the waistband of his jeans to free his hands. Then he scooped up a snowball and let her have it. Splat! Dead center of her forehead.

Her laughter came to an abrupt stop about the time his began in earnest. “Why you …”

She squatted to arm herself for retaliation, but he ran before she could launch the first volley. He got pegged twice in the back as he ducked behind the camper. Then he jumped out again and got her in the chest.

She fired three at him, one after the other, and he took one in the face before he had a chance to weave out of the line of fire.

Time to change tactics. When Justin used to ambush him with snowballs this little trick had never failed. He let her hit him with one, then fell down onto his back, and lay very still, not moving.

Sure enough, she tiptoed closer.

“Romano?”

And still closer.

“Come on, Romano, I didn’t hurt you, did I?”

And closer yet. She crouched down, her hands moving to touch his face, and he sprang the trap.

Grabbed her shoulders and flipped her onto her back in the snow while she yelped in surprise.

He straddled her to hold her still and drizzled a little white stuff onto her face while she wriggled beneath him, his head full of memories.

In his mind he saw Justin’s smile, heard the music of his laughter.

And then he stopped and sat very still. My God, he’d remembered. He’d done it without a flash of blinding pain. He’d been laughing. Laughing out loud.

He stared down at the woman beneath him. Her cheeks cherry red in the moonlight and falling snow, her eyes sparkling, her hair spread over the snow, damp with it.

She smiled softly. “All right, I surrender. You win. You’re a superior warrior, I admit it.”

He got off her, took her hands and helped her to her feet. He didn’t know what to say, what to think. Part of him knew he ought to feel bad for remembering without pain. How could he? How could he play and laugh when his little boys were dead because of him?

But there was another part, a long-starved, craving part that sighed in relief. A lifeless, barren place in his soul absorbed what had just happened the way the desert absorbs the rain. And it felt like a single blade of new grass was struggling to break through.

That sensation was life, he thought. But he didn’t deserve life. So he ignored it.

“I didn’t know you had a playful bone in your body, Romano,” she said, brushing snow away from her clothes, then starting on his.

“I …” He couldn’t answer her. He was still too overwhelmed.

“I’m glad you do,” she said. “I never had anyone to be playful with. I didn’t even know I had it in me.”

He forced himself to take his eyes off her. She looked like a kid, her hair tousled and snowy, her face glowing, her eyes sparkling.

Damn, damn, damn, he didn’t like what he was feeling.

“Come on, let’s go inside,” she said.

He followed her, reminding himself over and over why he was there.

He had to kill White. He had to avenge his family.

He didn’t deserve happiness, because it was his fault they were dead, and even killing that murderer wasn’t going to change that.

Nothing would. His family was dead and Romano was alive.

That was so wrong, so very wrong that the gods must have gone off duty on that blackest of days.

Fate must have taken a vacation, because it just wasn’t the natural order of things.

It was out of whack. The whole freaking universe was screwed up.

And he wasn’t going to forget that it should have been him blown into so many bits there hadn’t been enough left to bury. Those markers, standing over empty graves, should have his name cut into their stone faces. It should have been him, not them.

“Are you sure we can’t go back to the house?”

It was the fifth time she’d asked him the question as she tossed restlessly on the top bunk. He answered her mechanically, his mind on other things.

“We can’t go to your house, Lexi. It wouldn’t be safe.”

“You can’t be sure of that. Why would they leave anyone there, when they had every reason to think we were heading to New York? It doesn’t make sense.”

She was right. There was very little chance White had bothered leaving men at her house, or near it, on surveillance duty. Very little chance. But a chance, all the same. It would only take them being spotted once to bring White right back to their doorstep. And Romano didn’t want the bastard here.

Not yet, anyway.

He’d discovered that he would prefer to have that deadly formula safely on its way to Darren first. Moreover, he admitted, he’d like it if he could get Lexi Stoltz out of the line of fire before it came down to the final confrontation.

He didn’t want her to see him kill or be killed.

She was too damned softhearted to take it.

“Romano?”

“Hmm?”

“I hate calling you that. When are you going to tell me your given name?”

“Don’t hold your breath.” She could get it out of him, if she applied herself. He figured there wasn’t much he could keep from her if she wanted to know bad enough. Things had a way of just slipping out when she was around. She ought to work for the FBI.

“Do you really think there are men watching my house?” She leaned over the edge of the bed so she could see him on the bunk below her. Her hair hung straight down toward the floor and her eyes glimmered in the lamplight. “And tell me the truth, will you?”

“You look like a troll upside down.”

“A troll?” Her brows drew together.

“Don’t tell me you’ve never seen Trolls . They have long hair that stands straight up in neon colors. Jack must’ve made me watch that movie about thirty times …”

It had happened again. For just a second, he’d seen his little boy in his mind’s eye, sitting in the middle of the living room floor with his troll collection spread out around him, moving the figures around while watching the movie.

He’d remembered. Without effort, his mind had given him a memory and no tidal wave of guilt and pain had come surging in to drown him.

Twice now in one night. Why? Why now? What did it mean?

She was staring at him. Hanging upside down with her troll hair so long he could have reached out and touched it. She was seeing the emotions cross his face, he knew she was.

“Oh,” she said softly. Then louder. “Oh, those trolls. With the neon-colored hair. I’m not taking that as a compliment, Romano.”

Her eyes said more. They touched his soul, those huge brown eyes. They moved over his face and it seemed as if they smoothed some invisible balm over his deepest wounds. He could see the warmth in them. He could feel the healing power of their touch.

She spoke volumes with her eyes. And he heard her.

“But this troll talk is off the subject,” she said.

“I suppose it is.” His voice came out slow, lazy.

He had to shake himself before he could remember what they’d been talking about initially.

When it came back to him, he blinked, breaking the grip of her gaze, breaking the spell she’d been putting him under.

“Lexi, why are you so determined to go back to the house, anyway?”

“Why are you so determined not to let me?”

“Because it’s risky.”

“The risk has to be minimal. At least admit that much. There’s very little chance White left anyone there and you know it.”

He chewed his lip and nodded. “You’re right, there’s very little chance. But that’s still a chance and it’s a chance I’m not willing to take.”

“We could at least look, couldn’t we? I mean, if we head over there at night, sneak a look at the house from the woods, we could see for ourselves if there’s anyone around.”

He propped himself up on one elbow. “This is about that cat of yours, isn’t it?”

Her face was turning pink. She nodded upside down.

“Your blood’s rushing to your head, Lexi. And if you think I’m gonna risk everything for a cat, it must be interfering with your ability to reason.”

She pulled her head up, but a second later her legs hung over the side. Bare feet and smooth calves. And then she hopped to the floor, pacing. “He has to be fed, or he’ll die.”

“He’ll catch a mouse.”

“I don’t have mice.”

“A bird, then.”

“But he was shut in!”

“Uh, no. We left a window open.”

“A second story window. He’s not a flying cat, you know.”

“We left that rope ladder. He can climb down that if he gets desperate.”

“He’s not that kind of a cat.”

“I didn’t know there was more than one kind,” he said.

“Well, there are. There are the lean, nimble, athletic cats and then there are cats like Jax. Round, lazy, spoiled cats who prefer being pampered to hunting big game. He needs me."

She paced to the little stove and set a kettle of water on the burner, then rummaged in the cupboards.

“Lexi, it’s only been two days.”

She located the box of hot cocoa mix he’d bought, opened a packet and poured it into a disposable cup. Her back was to him. She wore a T-shirt and, as far as he could tell, nothing else.

She looked toward him, tried for a smile, but it was crooked and endearingly sad. “You want a cup?”

“He’ll be okay for a little bit longer. The good thing about a cat like Jax is that it can last forty-eight hours without food and probably not even feel hungry.”

She nodded. “Maybe.”

“We’ll get your father’s papers from McManus tomorrow. We’ll get that formula into the right hands. After that it won’t matter.”

Her brows bunched together. “There is no formula,” she said, her voice a little stiffer than before.

But it sounded to Romano as if she was mainly saying it to convince herself.

She tore open a second envelope, dumped it into a second cup, then poured the hot water.

“And even if there was, what difference will it make? White will still come after us if we’re seen up here, won’t he? ”

“Yes, he’ll still come after us.”

She stirred the cocoa, carried a cup in each hand and sat down on the edge of his bed. He sat up, taking his cocoa from her hand, touching her fingers as he did so, wishing he hadn’t.

“But I’ll make sure you— and your cat—are someplace safe by then. When White gets here, there’s only going to be one person waiting for him.”

She held her cup between her hands, her eyes probing his. “You’re going to kill him, aren’t you?”

He didn’t nod, didn’t answer. Just averted his gaze and sipped from his cup.

“What if he kills you, instead?”

“He already did that.” Damn, there he went again, blurting things that were none of her business. He took another drink, set the cup on the floor.

“He killed your family,” she whispered. “But not you. You’re still alive.”

“My body is, Lexi. That’s all, though. There’s nothing left inside.”

“There is.” She put her cup on the floor, not having taken a single sip of the liquid it held. He shook his head in denial, but she caught his face between her palms, held it still, staring so deeply he felt her touch in his soul. “There is, Romano. I see it, right there in your eyes.”

“No—”

“You don’t want to be alive anymore, because it hurts. You wish it had been you. But it wasn’t you. It was them, and they’re gone, and it’s horrible and unfair. But they wouldn’t want you to stay dead inside. They’d want you to go on. Do your grieving and miss them and love them always. But go on.”

His hands rose, closing over hers on his face. He moved them away slowly, and he shook with emotion. “I can’t do that,” he whispered roughly.

“You can, if you just?—”

“You don’t understand, dammit!” His words exploded from his chest, vibrating through the small camper, making Lexi jerk in surprise.

He released her hands, clasped her shoulders, his fingers sinking into her flesh.

“It’s my fault they died. I screwed up. I underestimated that bastard, and he killed them.

He killed Wendy and he killed my boys because of me.

” He released her suddenly, shoving her away from him as he did.

He’d had no choice, because he’d been damn close to clinging to her and letting the magic in those brown eyes heal him.

He no longer doubted that it could.

She scrambled off the bed, and he didn’t want her coming back to him. If she touched him again, he’d do something stupid. He turned onto his side, facing the wall.

Lexi stayed where she was. “It wasn’t your fault.”

“It was."

“Why?”

He closed his eyes. He did not talk about this. Not to anyone. He never had. And he wasn’t about to begin now.

And even as he assured himself of those things, the entire ugly story was taking shape in his mind, readying itself to be told. To be shared. With her.

He rolled onto his back, looked up into her brown eyes. He reached out to take hold of her hand, and he pulled her until she sat on the edge of the bunk beside him.

“There was a bomb threat phoned in. That’s how it started,” he began.