Lennox lunged forward to get a grip on Keller’s wrist, trying to relieve some of the pressure being exerted on Maria’s arm even as he tore at the man’s clenching fingers one by one in an attempt to get her free. But all that did was make Keller yank at Maria’s arm harder, dragging her closer and closer to the edge. She shrieked again, her eyes wide with fear.
Lennox was contemplating whether throwing himself at Keller would get him to release Maria when a shout from behind made him twist around to see what the hell was coming next. He was ready for anything, except the sight of Talia leaping over the helipad railing toward him. She ended up landing on him with a thud and would have likely kept rolling if he hadn’t grabbed her with his free hand.
He expected Talia to immediately grab onto Maria to try and pull her to safety. Instead, she pointed the handgun Anna had been carrying in Keller’s general direction and started pulling the trigger as fast as she could. He had no idea if Talia hit what she was aiming at, but Keller let go of Maria and the netting with a shout, a look of pure hatred etched across his features.
Lennox watched the man fall all the way to the water below. The splash when Keller hit was loud as hell and when he disappeared from sight, it was obvious he wasn’t coming back up. Whether it was the impact with the water or the two bullets in his chest, Keller was dead.
Talia panted breathlessly from where she lay beside Lennox on the helipad’s safety netting, one arm around Maria. Whereas a few seconds ago she was a frightened little girl, now Maria was relaxed and smiling. He supposed kidswereas resilient as they say.
“You rescued us, Talia!” Maria exclaimed. “You’re awesome!”
“She’s right,” Lennox agreed. “You are.”
Talia let out a sound that was half laugh, half cute little snort. “Thanks. But I think you did most of the rescuing.”
“That means he’s awesome too!” Maria agreed. “Don’t you think so, Talia?”
Lips curving into a tired smile, Talia looked at Lennox. “I do think so, yes. But can we go home now?”
Lennox rolled over a little on the netting so he could look at Talia. “Home as in your cottage or my apartment?”
Her lips curved. “It doesn’t matter. Wherever you are is where I want to be. Though I do have that very cool coffee maker at mine.”
He couldn’t help chuckling a little even as he forced himself to temper his expectations in case he was reading more into Talia’s words than he should. “But just so I’m clear about this.Are you saying you want to be wherever I am tonight or beyond that?”
“Beyond that,” Talia said, her expression earnest. “I know there’s still a pin in the conversation we need to have about what it will mean for the two of us to be together but after everything that’s happened over the past twenty-four hours, I realized that I always want you coming back to me. And I want you to know that there’ll always be someone waiting for you to come back to.”
Lennox leaned in to give Talia a kiss—a very chaste one since Maria was right there.
“I love you,” he whispered. “I have for a while now. I realize this seems fast, but I know what I know. It just took me a while to say the words.”
“You’re not going to hear me complaining,” she said with a laugh and another quick kiss. “I seem to be as slow as you when it comes to admitting my feelings but yes, I love you too. It took me a little while to fall, but when I started to tumble, I fell fast.”
“Yay!” Maria shouted gleefully. “Does this mean the wedding and honeymoon to Legoland are back on?”
Lennox gave Talia a questioning look.
“It’s complicated,” she said with a smile. “It’s best in the long run if you just go along with all of Maria’s plans.”
Seeing the value in that suggestion, Lennox gave the little girl a smile. “It might not happen as soon as you want, but yeah, I think everything is on as planned.”
Maria probably would have jumped up and down cheering if she wasn’t lying on a patchwork of ropes and straps a hundred feet above the ocean. So instead, she giggled and punched the air with both fists.
Chuckling, Lennox motioned toward the water with his head. “Maybe it’s time to get off this ship before one of us falls overboard.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
“When we run into Bogdan, remind me to tell him how much the guys and I appreciate him putting this cookout together,” Lennox said as Talia led him around the side of the main house and into the backyard where the tables and chairs were still being set up for the party. “This last week at work has been ridiculous and something like this is exactly what we need to get our mind off the craziness.”
“Don’t worry, I’ll remind you,” Talia said with a laugh as Maria and Beverly ran past them and straight for the dessert table.
Lennox eyed the various cakes, cupcakes, brownies, and cookies like he wouldn’t mind sampling one—or more—of them himself but acquiesced as Talia tugged him for a turn through the gardens—and a little privacy. While the two of them had spent a lot of time together over the two weeks since he’d rescued them on the ship, she knew there’d been some things he hadn’t been able to tell her. She hoped that would finally change now that the police investigation at the docks had been officially closed.
“Is your boss still mad about what you guys did at the dock?” she asked.
Lennox glanced over as his Teammates started arriving for the cookout. “Officially, no one from SEAL Team 5 was within ten miles of the docks that night so technically, there’s nothing he can do about it. Unofficially, Commander Hunt is mostly pissed that I didn’t let anyone else higher up the chain know about what was happening so they could help. He’s not thrilled that we ran a covert operation on our own, but he understands why we did it.”
“That doesn’t sound too bad,” Talia said, some of the weight that had been bearing down on her shoulders disappearing. She’d had visions of Lennox getting locked in the brig—if that was really a thing.
