The Sharpshooter's Secret Son Read online

  A volley of bullets followed him. He stumbled through the door and spotted a patch of sunlight to his left. Was that the back door he’d told Mindy to look for? Or was just the flashing lights in his head signaling that he was about to pass out?

  Didn’t matter. Whatever the light was, it was his only hope for survival, because he heard heavy footsteps on the stairs behind him.

  He staggered toward the light, noticing that it got brighter and dimmer at the same time. He shook his head, hoping he wasn’t hallucinating, and grabbed at what looked like a door facing.

  The light was bright and hot. And out in the distance, he saw two large uniformed men with a small figure in tow.

  Mindy! They’d captured her.

  He propelled himself forward just as a huge rumbling noise rose behind him and a blast of hot air slammed against his back, burning his skin.

  It was over.

  Tell Mindy I’m sorry.

  Chapter Twelve

  “Mindy, I’m sorry,” Deke whispered brokenly through lips that wouldn’t move. His mouth felt stuffed with cotton, and his head felt like it was made of lead. Helpless tears filled his eyes.

  He hadn’t wanted it to end like this. He would have gladly given his life for Mindy and their baby, but he had hoped he could have seen his son before he died.

  “Mr. Cunningham?” A voice he didn’t recognize was speaking very close to his ear. “Mr. Cunningham, are you awake? You need to wake up.”

  He wanted to swat at the annoying voice and sink back into oblivion, but he couldn’t move his arm.

  “We can’t let you leave recovery until you wake up. Can you talk to me?”

  Whoever was bothering him wasn’t going to give up. He opened bleary eyes and then closed them immediately. The light was too bright. “Where’s Mindy?”

  “Mr. Cunningham, I need you to talk to me.”

  “Leave me alone.”

  He heard a soft chuckle. “Well, that’s something, I guess. Now open your eyes. Do you know where you are?”

  Deke growled under his breath. If he couldn’t see Mindy, he wanted to be left alone. He felt helpless—and feeling helpless pissed him off.

  “In hell?” he muttered.

  Another chuckle. “Not quite. You’re in the recovery room, but now that I’ve got your attention, I’ll make arrangements for you to be taken to your room. See this?”

  He forced his eyes open and saw a blue plastic container that looked like it was made to hold a kidney. “I’m setting it right here beside you. If you feel sick, use it.”

  Whatever the woman was talking about, it didn’t interest Deke in the least. All he cared about was finding Mindy. He sat up—or tried to. As soon as he raised his head, his vision went black.

  Mindy! he screamed, but nobody answered.

  DEKE OPENED HIS EYES. The last thing he remembered was the blast of exploding dynamite against his back.

  No. There was something else he remembered—an annoying voice, but he couldn’t place it.

  He took a careful breath and was surprised at what he smelled. No heat, no burning cloth or wood—or flesh.

  He smelled bleach, and something fresh and medicinal. He opened his eyes to a narrow slit. Everything was a muted green color.

  Hospital! He was in a hospital. Suddenly he was wide-awake. That meant he hadn’t been blown up when the dynamite exploded. And that meant—

  Did that mean that Mindy was all right? And the baby?

  He looked at himself. His left arm was bandaged from elbow to wrist. There was a blood pressure cuff on his right upper arm and a needle sticking out of his wrist.

  But not for long. He’d put in an IV port before, in the field. He could take one out.

  And he did, with a little difficulty, hampered by the bandage on his right arm. The stick point bled a little, but he’d seen worse. Hell, he’d bled worse.

  He slipped his arm out of the blood pressure cuff and sat up on the side of the bed—and discovered he had nothing on but the flimsy, open-backed hospital gown. He stood slowly, careful to give himself time to make sure his head was clear, then checked the closet and drawers. His clothes weren’t there—not surprising. They’d been tattered and filthy. With a little digging, he found a set of scrubs—probably for him to wear when they discharged him.

  He yanked off the gown and pulled on the scrub pants, stopping a time or two when his head began to spin.

  By the time he got the pants on and the drawstring tied he was out of breath again. He took a long drink from a plastic water jug, letting a little of it drizzle down over his neck and chest. After rubbing it into his skin, he poured some in his hand and splashed his face.

  Fortified by the water, he left his hospital room and headed down the hall to the nurse’s station.

  By the time he got there he was out of breath.

  The ward clerk looked up from the orders she was transcribing. “Yes?” she said. “What room?”

  “Where’s my wife?” he demanded.

  The clerk sighed. “What’s your name and date of birth, please?”

  “My room’s right back there.”

  The clerk glanced past him. Deke turned and saw a security officer coming toward him.

  “Take me to Mindy Cunningham,” he demanded.

  “Now Mr. Cunningham, I’ve been directed to see that you stay in your room. We need to make sure—”

  “I need to make sure my wife is all right. Take me to her.”

  The guard held up his hands. “Now settle down—”

  “No, you settle!” Deke’s head was spinning again, but he took a step forward and got in the guard’s face. “My wife was in labor. She’d better be here somewhere.” He lowered his head and glared at the security guard from under his brows. “Take me to her—now!”

  The guard nodded past him at the ward clerk.

  The clerk typed a few keystrokes on a computer. “Room 410,” she said.

  “Where are the elevators?” Deke put a hand out to the wall to steady himself.

  “Hold it. The only way you’re going to leave this floor is in a wheelchair pushed by me. I have my orders.”

  “From who?”

  The guard gestured at a nurse, who pushed a wheelchair up behind Deke. The guard put a hand on Deke’s chest. Deke sank into the chair without a protest.

  “From Irina Castle.”

  That shut Deke up for a few seconds. As the guard pushed him into the elevator, he finally found his voice. “Irina told you to make me use a wheelchair?” he asked suspiciously.

  The security guard didn’t answer him directly. He leaned forward and punched the button labeled 4. “She warned me that you’d be stubborn and difficult.”

  Deke watched the display as it showed 2, then 3 and finally 4. “Here we are.”

  “Stay put. You don’t get to walk.”

  As the guard pushed Deke out onto the fourth floor, he realized it was the maternity ward. The sight of yellow ducks and pink and blue elephants on the walls and the smell of baby powder rendered him speechless and paralyzed with fear.

  Had Mindy had her baby? His baby?

  Their baby?

  The halls were filled with hospital employees dressed in pink and yellow and blue printed scrubs, carrying stacks of snowy-white linens, armfuls of tubing, pushing medication carts—he even saw one carrying an infant.

  Then he saw the rooms and the numbers on the doors.

  “Stop!”

  The guard kept pushing the chair.

  “Stop!” Deke put his bare foot out to try and stop the chair. He groped along the side until he found the lever that threw the brake.

  “Hey!” the guard said.

  “There’s room 410,” Deke snapped.

  “Right. That’s where we’re headed.”

  Deke turned his head and looked up at the guard from under his brows. “I’m not going in there in a wheelchair. She will not see me in a wheelchair, do you understand?”

  He saw the guard’s Adam’s
apple bob as he swallowed. “Yes.”

  Deke stood. He had on nothing but green cotton pants and a bandage on his right arm, but at least he was standing on his own two feet.

  It took him a couple of seconds to be sure he was steady enough to walk. The guard reached out a hand, but he shook his head.

  A nurse walked up. “Are you Mr. Cunningham?” she asked.

  He nodded. “Is my—Is Mindy—?”

  The nurse smiled. “She just got back to her room.”

  “And the—”

  “The baby is just fine. We’ll be bringing him to her in a few minutes.”

  Deke’s throat closed up.

  The nurse patted his arm. “You can go on in.”

  He nodded.

  The guard clasped him on the shoulder. “Congratulations, son.”

  Deke frowned at him for a second, then nodded. He waited until the nurse and the guard left before he stepped up to the closed door.

  He put out his hand, but stopped short of pushing the door open. It wasn’t fair to her to barge in on her without her permission.

  Nothing had changed. Not really.

  Mindy had never deserved what he’d put her through. His life was and always had been a train wreck, and she’d been dragged along with him for far too long.

  She deserved to have the safe, normal life she’d always wanted.

  He drew his hand back and wiped his face. One thing had changed. Him. At least now he could see how bad he was for her. What kind of danger she was in because of him.

  Hell, if he had any courage at all, he’d turn and walk away.

  THE OBSTETRICIAN HAD been very clear.

  Relax! I want you to sleep at least twelve hours a day if not more. Every time your baby sleeps, you sleep.

  Easy for you to say, she’d responded. She was too tired—and too tense to sleep. After three days of unrelenting fear and tension as she and Deke ran from terrorists, she’d barely had enough strength to assist in her Sprout’s birth.

  The doctor had threatened several times to do a Caesarian, but she’d refused every time.

  “I’m fine,” she’d puffed in the middle of her contractions. “I want to have him naturally. I want to see him the very instant he comes out, and I cannot be confined to bed.”

  The doctor hadn’t been happy, but Mindy had won. She’d told the doctor the truth, but not the whole truth. There was no way she’d let the doctor cut on her because as soon as she was able, she was going to find Deke.

  In fact, she was just about to get up now. She took a deep breath that turned into a jaw-cracking yawn. She closed her eyes. After a couple of minutes of rest, she was definitely going to go searching for Deke.

  The last glimpse she’d had of him was when he’d stumbled out the back door of the old hotel. In the very next instant, he’d disappeared in a cloud of black smoke as the building behind him had exploded.

  She’d screamed and tried to run toward the burning building, but men in black secret service jackets had forced her into their SUV and rushed her with sirens wailing to Crook County Hospital’s Maternity Ward. She’d screamed in protest until one of them made a call and verified for her that Deke was alive and on the way to the same hospital.

  By the time Sprout had made his appearance, Mindy had made such a pest of herself that one of the labor and delivery nurses had checked with hospital admissions and found that he’d been admitted and rushed into surgery.

  And that was all she’d been able to find out. Everyone seemed much more concerned with her resting and getting plenty of IV fluids.

  She knew the nurses were going to be bringing little Sprout in to her within the hour, and her arms and heart ached to hold him. But she knew her baby was fine. She’d seen him briefly, and the doctor had reassured her that he had all the requisite fingers and toes.

  She had no idea how Deke was. She had to find out if he was all right.

  Dear God, please let him be all right. Let him be whole and well. And don’t scar him any more than you have to, God.

  Tears seeped out from underneath her closed lids. She knew scars wouldn’t matter to him. She could hear him now. He’d say that the scars on the outside were a good match for the scars inside.

  He’d endured so much. Been through so many trials, and kept his sanity and his goodness. If anybody in the world had earned the right to be happy, he had.

  But his childhood had left such a mark on him. He was so afraid that he wasn’t worthy of being a father. So afraid of being like his own father.

  She wished she could convince him that he was nothing like Jim Cunningham. Deke’s father had been a sick, lonely old man who’d wallowed in his own misery. He might have been a good man once, but he’d let drink and bitterness overwhelm him until he was consumed by self-hatred.

  Deke had never let anything—not alcohol, not torture, not even heartbreak, overwhelm him. His innate goodness, combined with the love and trust of his friends, had kept him from veering onto the path his father had taken.

  She just wished he believed in himself as much as everyone believed in him. Deke was a hero. He just didn’t know it.

  Mindy let her head recline back on the pillow, not caring that tears slid down her cheeks and neck. She’d never been able to break through the armor he’d built around his heart. Never been able to convince him of the kind of man he was. What made her think that she could now? It broke her heart that he might never accept that he deserved to be a part of his son’s life or, more important, how much his son needed and deserved to have him as a father.

  “You’re a hero, Deke. Your son needs you, and so do I.”

  The door to her room eased open with a small squeak.

  It was the nurse bringing her baby. Mindy smiled and pushed herself up in the bed.

  “Come in,” she called. “I’ve been wait—”

  The hand that grasped the edge of the door was not a nurse’s hand. It was big and long-fingered, with ragged nails, scraped knuckles and a specks of dried blood coating its back.

  Mindy couldn’t breathe as the door swung open and Deke stepped into the room.

  He had on nothing but green scrub pants that hung low on his lean hips. His right arm was bandaged and the cut on his forehead was striped with sterile strips. His torso was an abstract painting in blues and purples and greens.

  He looked exhausted and sick and scared. His blue eyes glittered in contrast to his pale face.

  To Mindy, he’d always been larger than life. At over six feet, he towered over her five feet seven inches. But the physical difference between them had paled in comparison to his presence.

  Now, however, standing half-naked in front of her, with all his hurts exposed, he seemed smaller, thinner. He looked human and breakable.

  And she loved him so much that the mere sight of him stole her breath and hurt her heart.

  She held out her hand. “Deke.”

  Deke stared at Mindy, unable to move. Hardly able to breathe. To his hazy brain, she looked like an angel, lying in the glow of the dim light that shone down from over the head of her bed. Her hair lay against the pale green sheets like dark angel wings.

  He swallowed. “Can I—come in?” he said hoarsely.

  She stared at him for a few seconds. Then her tongue flicked out to moisten her lips and his heart skipped a beat.

  She nodded, still holding out her hand.

  He stepped over to the side of the bed and took her hand in his. This close he could see the purple shadows under her eyes and the drawn translucence of her skin.

  “Where’s Sprout? I mean, have you—?”

  She nodded. “They’ll be bringing him in here in a few minutes.”

  A hot flash of pure panic ripped through him. “I should go.”

  Mindy’s hand tightened on his. “Oh, no, you don’t,” she said. “You’re not getting away that easily. Sit down here and tell me what happened.”

  He nodded. Sitting down would be a good idea right now. He gingerly perched o
n the edge of the bed, wincing as the movement made his bandaged arm ache.

  “How’s your arm?”

  “I think it’s going to be okay. I was supposed to wait for the doctor to come talk to me, but I needed to find you.”

  Mindy’s eyes turned bright with tears. “That’s funny. I was just about to go looking for you,” she whispered. Her fingers slid back and forth across his knuckles. “The hotel blew up.”

  “Dynamite.”

  “What about James, and—?”

  He shook his head, his lips flattened into a straight grim line. “I don’t know.”

  Her hand squeezed his. “It had to be done, Deke.”

  “I know.” He looked down at their hands. “Min, I’m glad you’re okay. You and the baby.” He paused, almost overwhelmed by all the emotions swirling through him. Love, fear, relief, sadness. “Really glad.”

  “I’m glad you’re okay, too. I was so afraid—”

  He nodded. “Do you remember how we got to the hospital?”

  “Your car was surrounded by black SUVs when I got outside. I was terrified, but the men said they were Secret Service. I had no choice but to believe them. I got the feeling they would have gotten me into one of the vehicles one way or another.”

  “Secret Service. Aaron must have given them my location. Or maybe Rafe tracked me by the chip.” He rubbed his shoulder.

  “Chip?” Mindy’s eyes widened. “You told me—”

  A sharp rap at the door made them both jump.

  “Hi, Mindy,” a cheerful voice said. “You’ve got a little visitor.” The overhead light came on, chasing every last shadow from the room.

  Deke’s chest tightened. He had an overwhelming desire to bolt; to run as fast as he could somewhere—anywhere—as long as it was far away from the tiny baby that he was about to see.

  He vaulted to his feet and backed away from the bed.

  “Oh, hello.” The nurse said. “You must be Mr. Cunningham. Congratulations.”

  All Deke could manage was a brief nod. He was too busy staring at the tiny baby the nurse was placing in Mindy’s arms.