Colby Agency: Decoded Part 12

Be strong, Maggie. He'd protected her so far. But she feared his ability to protect himself was sorely compromised. And that poor woman and her grandson. Slade hadn't said a word about them.

"I'm sorry about your friends." She cleaned away the blood from the injury, which took some doing. He didn't flinch. Didn't respond to her comment.

"Lavena seemed fond of you." Maggie had no idea what the dynamics of their relations.h.i.+p had been, but such heinous murders were a terrible thing just the same.

"She was a contact." He s.h.i.+fted in his chair as Maggie applied the ointment. "A resource. Nothing more."

Maggie considered his tone, the words he had used. "Whatever she was to you, she's dead now." It made her angry that he showed no sadness whatsoever. "Those terrible men shot her in her own house. They murdered her grandson in his bathtub. It was awful, just awful." Her voice grew more high-pitched as she spoke. She hadn't wanted to sound harsh, but she just couldn't ignore the truth as he seemed able to do.

"They knew the risks."

Maggie's hands fell away from his arm, her mouth gaped in astonishment. Just when she thought nothing else could shock her. "Did you hear yourself?" What kind of person thought like that?

The man to whom she had given her heart, apparently.

Slade looked up at her. "Did you hear me?"

What the Sam Hill did that mean? "I heard exactly what you said." She planted her hands on her hips and glared at him. How could he be so callous?

She couldn't do this. He grabbed her arm before she could turn away. He didn't speak until she looked at him. "I told you, you wouldn't like my world. This-" he pressed her with those dark gray eyes "-is my world. Kill or be killed. Walking away from the dead and just being glad it wasn't you."

Yanking her hand free of his, she tore at the wrappers on the bandages. Her fingers fumbled and that made her even madder.

"I'm not that man you imagined me to be," he went on. "I let you see what I wanted you to see. The rest you made up as we went along. That's what humans do. They fill in the blanks with the story they want to believe. You created the fairy tale, Maggie. I just gave you the jumping-off point."

Outrage burst inside her. "I made it up? Humans do this?" What did that make him? She slapped a palm against her chest. "I have the problem, is that it?" She couldn't believe this. Did he not see how wrong his thinking was? How could anyone so smart be so blind?

He reached for the bandages. "I knew you wouldn't understand."

Maggie stilled. Her insides went deathly quiet. It wasn't so much the words he said but the way he said them. Here was a man who had been abused, forced as a child to learn and accomplish horrific deeds most adults never experienced. His emotions had been battered out of him. He had carried that ugliness with him for thirty years. Most likely for the first time in all those years he had dared to share some part of that truth with someone and she had just done what he had feared all along.

She hadn't understood. She'd treated him like a freak.

He was undeniably correct. She was the one with the problem.

"I'm sorry. You're right." He didn't look at her as she spoke. "I'm the one with the problem." She watched as he fumbled with the bandages. Finally she couldn't take it anymore and pushed his hands away. "Let me do it."

Maggie took her time, lining up the bandages until the gash was fully covered. He definitely needed a few st.i.tches, but there was not a thing she could do about that. Carefully, she wrapped a bandanna around the row of bandages and tied it snugly. "Maybe that'll work."

He glanced at his arm. "Thanks."

She washed her hands with the peroxide and the other bandanna. "You want something to eat?" There was a variety of snacks and bottled water. The way her stomach felt right now, she might not be able to keep anything down. "You must be starving."

He stood. "I don't need your sympathy."

Ire stirred once more as he strode to the window and stared out at the miles and miles of nothing but dirt and scrub gra.s.s. He wasn't going to make this easy. She had learned that when he wanted to push her away he avoided using her name. What was that all about? Was it because he'd changed ident.i.ties so many times that names were somehow irrelevant?

Had he acquired an innate ability not to get attached to a name because he knew he would have to change it the next time that evil woman caught up with him? What kind of life was that?

"What's your real name?" Maggie asked as she joined him at the primitive window. The bright sun made her squint; looking at him made her yearn to touch that incredibly well-defined chest. It was crazy that even after what they'd been through and what she now knew, she was drawn to him on every imaginative level. Hormones? That had to be it. She forced herself to focus on her original question. "What was the name you were given at birth?"

"The names I've used in the past are irrelevant."

Since he didn't look at her and his tone was devoid of emotion, she wasn't sure if he meant what he said or if he just made the statement for the shock value. He'd proven consistent in his determination not to reveal any facts about himself, much less any emotions. That he'd shared anything personal was stunning. Then again, she figured that he had reason to believe she wouldn't survive this ordeal, or he wouldn't have given her that bit of information.

"But your birth name was different," she countered, unwilling to give up the fight for more. "That's your true name." He couldn't argue her point. Well, unless a person legally changed his or her birth name. She felt confident that wasn't the case.

He turned his head so that he stared down his shoulder at her. She knew that move. Intimidation. Subtle, but there nonetheless. That he towered over her, bare chested and looking incredibly s.e.xy and somehow vulnerable at the same time, made her ache to reach out. But he didn't want her to touch him that way. He didn't want to connect on an emotional level, and the way she wanted to touch him was all about emotions.

"What difference does it make? I've told you too much already." His attention s.h.i.+fted back to the wide-open world outside where an ominous threat waited for him to show up for the final battle.

The big, wide world where he had never been safe, not a day in his life. Maggie ached at the thought. "It matters because it's yours," she said softly, her own emotion choking her. "No one but you has the right to take it away or discard it."

"I discarded it."

How could he be so detached about his ident.i.ty? Who he was mattered. He mattered.

"If you discarded it that means you don't care, so why not tell me?" There. Let him come up with an excuse not to answer her now.

Rather than answer, he walked away from her.

Maggie almost gave up. What difference did it make? By tomorrow he would likely be dead or someplace else with a new name. Either way he would be gone.

If she survived, her child would grow up never knowing his father. Considering all that she knew, wouldn't that be a blessing?

Uncertainty tore at her. How was she supposed to know?

She should just tell him. The thought startled her. Her intention had been not to tell him. If he stayed because of the baby, that would be wrong. She wanted him to stay because he wanted to stay. Was that selfish of her? Should she be thinking of her child rather than herself? Would her child resent that she had withheld this truth from his father? It wasn't as if she would lie if her child asked one day.

And what about Slade? Didn't he have any rights? Wasn't that the reason he carried such a ma.s.sive grudge? Because his own mother had never cared about his rights or his feelings?

Maggie summoned her shaky courage. "There's something you should know."

He dragged on his s.h.i.+rt. Reached for his vest.

"I'm serious, Slade." She almost laughed at herself. As if the past twenty-four hours or so had been anything other than serious.

"Stay inside. Away from the windows."

He wasn't going to answer her. He was leaving again. "You're leaving? After all that's happened?" She threw up her hands in frustration. "This suicide mission of yours is the biggest thing you've got going on?"

Her breath caught. She hadn't meant to say that.

For a single second he only stared at her. "I'll get word to you when it's safe to leave. If you don't hear anything, after forty-eight hours, call your friends at the Colby Agency. The old man who let this place can get you to a phone."

Maggie felt cold. Empty. But she knew what she had to do. "I'm pregnant."

He walked out the door.

SLADE KEPT WALKING. HIS instincts were railing at him to pay attention to his surroundings, but he couldn't do it. Her words kept ringing in his ears.

I'm pregnant.

He didn't have to ask her if she was certain. Maggie would know for sure before hitting him with this. She would never do this to trap him. She would never try to use anyone. Not him. Not a child.

His feet stalled, unable to continue carrying him wherever the h.e.l.l he was going.

She had been carrying this burden since she'd shown up at the brownstone the night of the explosion. Had she come to tell him?

How could he be a father?

Fear twisted deep in his belly.

He couldn't be a father. He lacked the skills.

Didn't she know that he was incapable of true emotion? That he was nothing?

Movement on the narrow lane that led to the village dragged his attention back to the present. A man on a bicycle was...heading this way...shouting.

Slade's right hand went automatically to his weapon.

The man was still shouting when he braked to a stop so fast he almost landed in the dirt right in front of Slade. It was the old man who'd rented them this d.a.m.n shack.

"Gringos in the village asking about you and the woman." He burst into Spanish from there.

Three men in a big black SUV were questioning villagers about Slade and the woman with red hair.

Slade glanced back at the window where Maggie watched.

She carried his child.

He had to protect her...had to protect that child...the way his father had not protected him.

Slade turned back to the old man still frantically waving his arms and rambling on about the gringos. Slade grabbed his wrist. When he had his full attention, he explained, "I have an offer for you."

The man's eyes widened with disbelief as Slade gave him the details. Two minutes later the old man drove away in the Jeep, headed back to the village. Slade rolled the bicycle back to the shack.

Maggie met him at the door. "I'm afraid to ask."

"They're in the village looking for us."

Her eyes rounded in fear as she stepped back to allow him to pa.s.s.

"I made a deal with the old man, but we have to lay low for a while." Slade gathered some of the snacks and a couple of bottles of water and tucked them into his backpack. Maggie stood right where he'd left her next to the door.

"That's it?"

She was angry. But this wasn't the time. He slung the backpack over his shoulder. "You did hear at least part of what the guy said, right?"

Without bothering to answer, she swiveled on her heel and walked out the door. Slade followed. He shook off the haze still cluttering his head. He'd deal with her news later.

If he lived long enough.

He swung onto the bike the old man had left. He patted the handlebars. "Hop up here."

She shot him an are-you-kidding look.

"I have no way to estimate how much time we have. I would suggest we get moving."

Maggie straddled the front wheel, braced her hands on the handlebars and hopped up. Slade licked his lips and resisted the urge to cup her backside with his hands. What was it about this woman that could, for a moment, make him forget even an impending threat?

Slade took the path the old man had told him about. He got to keep the Jeep if he convinced the gringos that the man and his redheaded woman had dumped it in favor of a better ride. The old man had no reason to renege on the deal. The Dragon's men wouldn't be offering any better deals. But Slade hadn't lived this long by a.s.suming anything.

Rather than go to the cousin's house the old man had offered, Slade rode the bike to the rock outcropping a hundred or so yards from the shack and stopped. He set Maggie on her feet.

"Why are we stopping?"

"Just in case."

When the bike was hidden from view, Slade settled into position, binoculars and weapon in hand.

Maggie crouched down beside him. "Will they try to kill us now or take us to her?"

"As long as they don't find us, they won't do either." He scanned the road in both directions. The answer was far more complicated than that, but his comment would, hopefully, satisfy her.

Maggie hugged her arms around her knees. "Are you going to kill them?"

He lowered the binoculars. She was really worried. This type of maneuver was the norm for him. He had to remind himself that all of this was strange and terrifying to her. "If we're lucky, they'll check out the old man's story about us dumping the Jeep and leaving in another vehicle and move on."

"You'll let them drive away if they show up here?"

He nodded. "If they move on, that leaves us safe here."

Maggie pondered his explanation for a time. "We're staying here if they go?"

Slade met her expectant gaze. "If this goes down the way I want it to, you're staying here."

A moment of extended silence pa.s.sed.

"You're still planning to go after her."

Not a question. Maggie was beginning to understand there was no other choice. He'd taken the only choice he'd had when he left twelve years ago. There would be no other choices as long as she was alive.

A cloud of dust announced the arrival of trouble well before Slade heard the engine. He lifted the binoculars and checked the pa.s.senger list. Three goons. The usual black SUV.

The SUV skidded to a stop in front of the shack. All three men piled out. One took the back, the others burst in through the front.

Slade lowered the binoculars and waited. The goons would find evidence of Maggie tending his wound. A couple of left-behind snacks and a half-empty bottle of water. He checked the time on his cell. Two minutes and they would be gone.