Epilogue
EPILOGUE
THREE WEEKS LATER
“ O uch,” Lauren said in sympathy as Metal took a staple out of Jacko’s chest. Jacko himself would probably have his teeth pulled without benefit of anesthesia rather than make a sound. He didn’t even wince.
Macho idiot.
She stretched to kiss his cheek. “That ouch was for you since you’re not going to say it.”
Jacko turned his head and his face was no longer impassive. She knew that look very very well.
“Not now, kids,” Metal said mildly as he dropped a staple in a stainless steel receptable. His latex-covered hands were huge but extraordinarily delicate. Jacko had refused to go back to the hospital to have his stitches taken out, saying Metal was the best doctor he knew.
Jacko’d almost died. Metal had found them in the nick of time. The doctors said that Jacko had lost four liters of blood, almost incompatible with life. They started infusing him in the ambulance as they raced through the snowy streets.
The doctors had said that Jacko’s chest muscles were so dense, it was almost as if he’d been wearing armor. That, and the fact that the bullet ricocheted off a rib, saved his life. Still, he’d been in surgery for three nail-biting hours.
The doctors had wanted to keep Lauren overnight but against medical advice she’d signed herself out and sat vigil in the hospital waiting room.
One by one all the members of ASI had come trickling in to the waiting room where Lauren and Metal held vigil. Suzanne and John had arrived after Jacko had been in surgery for an hour. Suzanne had rushed to her and hugged her and that was when Lauren had broken down. Douglas and Allegra, Claire and Bud and all the ASI ‘operatives’ as they were called came. Lauren discovered just how beloved Jacko was.
Absolutely. He deserved love. He was brave and loyal and smart. She prayed every second he was in surgery that he’d come back to her.
When a deeply exhausted surgeon came in at midnight to say that Jacko would live, her legs gave out and only Metal’s lightning reflexes kept her from crumbling to the floor.
Another staple fell with a clink into the receptable. “Jesus,” Metal grumbled. “Staples. What is this? 1999?”
Lauren looked at Jacko’s chest absolutely determined to do it clinically and totally ignore how hot he looked shirtless. She bent to his chest and examined the scar. The doctors had done a very good job. There was a white line with little extensions to the sides, like a ladder. No redness, no infection. Jacko’s dark skin was clear. He looked exactly as he’d looked before only with a scar.
She smiled at him. “Scar’s kinda sexy.”
He smiled back. The first couple of times he’d smiled at her she’d been startled. But he was smiling more and more lately. Looked good on him. “I get points, don’t I?”
She stroked his arm on the uninjured side. “Absolutely. About a billion points. You saved my life. Doesn’t get more heroic than that. You have my lifelong gratitude.”
“Sounds good,” Metal said, removing another staple. Jacko had ten of them. “Lifelong gratitude from a pretty lady who is also rich. Pretty good deal.”
“Not that rich,” Lauren said.
It had all been about her mother’s jewels. The man after her had confessed for a reduced sentence. He’d been hired to kidnap her so she could get her mother’s jewels. There’s been more than she had imagined. Lauren had had the key to her mother’s safe deposit box at a bank in Palm Beach. She refused to leave Jacko’s side so had hired a lawyer and given him a proxy to open the box, together with a copy of the key.
Inside had been a fortune in historical jewels.
Lauren had immediately given them to Sotheby’s to auction them off. She didn’t want even one. The auction would be held in a month’s time and the collection was valued at over forty million dollars. Lauren was going to keep two million and donate the rest to art scholarships.
She didn’t want the rest of the money. She was going to buy her house, build an annex and set up college funds for the three kids she was going to have with Jacko. She hadn’t told him that bit yet. He’d just have to deal.
“We’re going to buy this house,” she told Metal, looking at Jacko. “And then?—”
Someone pounded on her front door.
Startled, Lauren looked at Metal and Jacko but they were already up, guns in hand. These days Jacko was never more than one step away from a gun. He even kept one on the bedside table on his side of the bed.
When they had kids, he was going to have to do something about that.
Metal beat Jacko to the door. They all looked at the security monitor. Lauren blinked. There was a very pretty blonde girl, face pinched and pale, looking up at the security camera. She was sweating even though it was freezing cold outside.
“Lauren?” Her voice was weak, slightly distorted by the speaker. “Runner?”
“Felicity!” Lauren rushed to the door, opened it. The woman stumbled over the threshold. Metal caught her before she could fall to the floor, lay her on her back.
Her entire left side was wet with blood. Metal was carefully opening her coat and shirt underneath.
He looked up. “We need to get her to a hospital. She’s lost a lot of blood.”
“No!” Felicity’s voice was weak but fierce. She grabbed Metal’s wrist with a blood-stained hand. She looked at Metal then at Lauren. “No hospital, please. He’s after me! He’ll find me in a hospital!”
Lauren kneeled down, took her hand. It was cold. “Honey, we need to get you to a doctor.”
Felicty’s pretty face was scrunched with pain. “Please, please,” she whispered. “He’ll kill me.”
Metal was examining the wound. “I can take care of her,” he said. “There’s a clinic I know where we can do x-rays, they’ll operate if necessary, completely off the grid.” He turned to Felicity. To her credit, she didn’t recoil at Metal’s face and size. He looked terrifying if you couldn’t see the kindness in him. However terrifying he looked, though, the guy after Felicity must have been even more terrifying because she didn’t flinch.
“Yes, yes. Keep me off the grid.” Her hand tightened on Metal’s wrist and he turned his hand to hold hers. “Please.”
“You’re safe,” he said, deep voice reassuring.
“That’s good to know. Though it’s not be true.” Felicity smiled faintly. Wheezed, coughed. “Nice to meet you finally.”
She looked at Lauren, while gripping Metal’s hand so tightly the knuckles were white. “You know, I’ve always wanted to say these words. Help me, Obi Wan Kenobi. You’re my only hope.”
And then she fainted.
THE END