“No, sweetheart, I didn’t.”
“But you walked away from me.” Because what other choice had there been?
“I couldn’t protect you back then. I didn’t have the means. Or the skills. So I found a way to change.”
Every word battered at her. They didn’t have time for this. They should be looking for a way to escape. But maybe…maybe he couldn’t escape. Maybe he was too weak from his wounds and trying not to show her how desperate things were. Spoiler, she knew it was bad.
The blow to the head. The blood on his shoulder and his thigh. Maybe Nash knew death was coming, and the idea gutted her.
“Jezebel Jenkins,” he whispered.
She wished Jezebel would come rushing to the scene.
“She found me the day after Carmello left. The day after I lost you.” A press of his lips to her temple. “She’d been following him. Not like she could say too much because it was classified and I was a civilian, but I saw an opportunity with her. A chance to become the man you needed.”
He’d always been what she needed.
“I traded in doctor’s scrubs for spy school. I became the most lethal predator that I knew how to be. And, in return for taking the most dangerous operations out there, I had eyes put on you. Jezebel knew your protection was what mattered to me. Agents would check in on you. I would check in on you. We kept tabs on you to make sure you were safe over the years.” A careful brush of his lips against her cheek. “Full confession? I didn’t need Agnes to call me and tell me to stop your wedding. I was already on my way to you.”
She grabbed for the front of his shirt. Her fingers fisted around the material. “We are going to die.”
“No, baby, I am going to kill. When that door opens, I am going to kill for you. We are going to make it out of here, and you are going to tell me all about the second time that you fell in love with me.”
Delaney wished she could see his face clearly.
“I’m sorry that I left you before.” Emotion scraped in the words. “I will never do it again. I only wanted to protect you. It’s all I’ve ever wanted.”
“All I wanted was for you to love me.”
“I do. I have. I will. Always.”
She could hear voices outside. The men who’d taken them, coming back. Or maybe even Kurt, coming to finish them off. The CIA had wanted to catch him in the act. They’d wanted to have enough evidence to bury him.
Instead, it looked as if she and Nash would be buried. “The second time,” Delaney began as she heard the squeak of the door begin to open. “It was when you gave me daisies at our wedding.” In the faint light from that opening door, her mouth found his. Her lips pressed lightly to his. Softly. Sadly.
A male voice snarled, “Stand the hell up!”
She wasn’t sure Nash could stand.
But what she was sure of…Delaney was sure that when she took her last breath, she’d still be loving him.
Chapter Twenty-Two
He didn’t have a gun. His knives had been taken. Nash knew because he’d done a quick pat down on himself to see if the jerks might have overlooked a few of his favorite tools.
Unfortunately, they had not. Thorough pricks.
He’d been stripped of weapons. He was in a hot, musty shed in the middle of the desert, and the creeps coming in the door wanted him dead.
But Delaney still loved him. So, hell, yes, he had a reason to keep living.
His head hurt like one right bastard. Pounding and throbbing and aching in the back where he could feel the wetness of blood. His shoulder burned, and his thigh still trickled blood. All things considered, though, he was in pretty good shape.
Delaney still loved him.
And he was about to annihilate every threat around her.
Slowly, he rose. He hadn’t faced the enemy yet, he figured that he looked bloody as hell from the back. He could feel the wetness of blood on his shirt. Dripping down his back from his head wound. That was the thing about head wounds. They bled and bled.
