No Hero Read online

  “Not everyone,” Penn said gently.

  “No. He has you.” She smiled through her tears. “He adores both of you. He depends on you more than he realizes.”

  Penn stared at her for a minute, her face unreadable. “You seem to understand him pretty well for someone who did her best to destroy him.”

  “I was so wrong about him.” Reghan said in a small voice. “I had no idea he’d been making up for his past all this time, by helping kids just like him.”

  “Well, at least you know now,” Penn said. For a moment she studied Reghan. “So what are your intentions?”

  “My intentions?” Reghan repeated, trying to figure out what she was talking about. But as she said it, Penn’s meaning penetrated her exhausted brain. “You want to know— Oh, Penn. If he would unbend enough to accept me, I’d never, ever let him go.” Her breath caught in a quiet sob.

  Penn held out her arms. Without hesitation, Reghan went into them, and they hugged tightly. When Penn pulled away, her eyes were bright with moisture. “I’ve known Dev for a long, long time. I’ve never seen him even act like he was in love—until you came along.”

  Reghan’s heart soared. “You really think—”

  Penn smiled. “I think my poor, clueless surrogate brother is head over heels. Trouble is, I doubt he knows it yet.”

  Reghan’s heart felt like it was about to burst out of her chest. But her caution and control, honed over her lifetime, kept her from being able to accept Penn’s words—or Dev’s drowsy admission—as truth.

  “However,” Penn said, frowning ominously, “if you hurt him, I will personally feed you to the alligators. One inch at a time.”

  Suddenly Reghan was smiling, and she couldn’t stop smiling any more than she could stop the tears that were still coursing down her cheeks.

  Pulling a tissue from a box on a nearby end table, Penn blotted at Reghan’s cheeks. “Now, sit down here and get comfortable. It’s obvious your injury is hurting. Rest. Take a nap, even. I’ll wake you when we know something.”

  “I’ll sit down, but I can’t sleep,” Reghan said. “Tell me how you and Dev met. You knew Thibaud, didn’t you?”

  For the next two hours Penn regaled Reghan with stories about Dev and Thibaud, until a doctor in blue scrubs came in, pulling off his surgical cap. Both Reghan and Penn stood.

  He took both of them in with a tired smile. “Who is the next of kin?”

  Tears stinging her eyes, Reghan stepped back, her knees weak with relief. Now that Penn was here, she was the more deserving of that designation.

  To her surprise, Penn turned and held out her hand. “We both are.”

  The doctor didn’t even blink. “He’s waking up now. The surgery went well, no problems. He should regain full use of his shoulder, although he’ll need physical therapy. But we can talk about that later. He’ll be very groggy and in some pain for at least twenty-four to forty-eight hours. One of you can stay the night, if you like.”

  “How long will he be in the hospital?” Penn asked.

  “No more than a couple of days, barring complications. Please excuse me. I’ve got another case.”

  After he left, Penn said, “Why don’t Katie and I see Dev for a minute, then you can stay tonight?”

  Reghan bit her lip. “Me? No. I’m sure Dev will want you. I’ll take care of Katie.”

  Penn gave her a look. “Are you kidding? It should definitely be you.”

  Reghan had to wipe more tears away from her eyes. “Thank you, Penn. Thank you.”

  She just prayed Dev agreed.

  …

  Half an hour later, the nurse let Reghan into Dev’s room. He was lying in the hospital bed, a white bandage covering his left shoulder, an IV line taped to his breastbone. Reghan’s heart squeezed to see him so helpless and vulnerable. Asleep, with no worry to tighten his features, he looked like the child he’d never gotten to be.

  She covered her mouth to hold in the sobs that were pushing at the back of her throat. She didn’t want to let him catch her crying.

  But it was no use. She gave up on stopping the tears and stood there at the foot of the hospital bed, reliving the moment when he’d thrown himself in front of her to stop the bullet Tracy had meant for her. It didn’t take a degree in medicine or physics to know that if it hadn’t been deflected by its path through his shoulder, the bullet would have gone straight through her heart.

  Once she was sure she wasn’t going to break down into a sobbing puddle of mush, she quietly stepped around the bed. She straightened the sheet and brushed her fingers across his tousled hair.

  His eyelids fluttered, then opened. He blinked slowly, and it took him a few seconds to focus on her face.

  “Hey, Connor,” he whispered, lifting his right hand. “You okay?”

  She clutched his hand, love flooding through her to hear the question he’d asked her so many times. Always thinking of someone else before himself. “Yeah, I’m okay,” she said with a watery smile. “You?”

  “Too sleepy.” He craned his neck toward the IV pole beside the bed. “Better without this damn morphine drip.” He moved to sit up, grunting with the effort.

  She gently guided him back down on the bed. “No pain meds for Detective Gautier?”

  He clenched his jaw. “Don’t start with me, Connor,” he said, his words slurred.

  With a watery smile, she sat on the edge of the bed and cradled his hand in both of hers. The stitches in her side pulled, and she shifted a bit to ease the sharp pain. “You know,” she said with a trace of amusement. “I do have a first name.”

  “Yeah? What is it again?”

  Her smile quirked. “Very funny.”

  His dark, sleepy eyes watched her. His mouth curved upward, just slightly. “I like Connor.”

  She could live with that.

  “Oh Dev, thank you,” she whispered. A tear leaked out of one eye, and she didn’t bother to wipe it away. She just couldn’t stop crying. She’d been so terrified for him…

  His frown was a pallid ghost of his usual scowl. “For what?”

  She touched his brow, smoothing away the shallow lines. “For saving my life.”

  He started to shake his head. She knew he was dismissing any goodness on his part. Dismissing any heroism. Dismissing anything that would admit even the smallest measure of human vulnerability inside that tough exterior. But halfway through the gesture, his face contorted with pain.

  She squeezed his hand, pushed a lock of hair from his forehead. “Don’t you dare dismiss my life, Dev,” she said vehemently. “You took the bullet meant for me. Do you know where it hit me once it went through you?” She pointed. “Right here. Do you know where it would have hit if you hadn’t jumped in front of me?”

  She lifted his hand and laid it over her heart.

  “Right. . . here.” More tears slipped over her cheeks. “But because of you, my heart is still whole.”

  Or more accurately, whole again…

  He sat up a bit. His mouth went white at the corners. “Not dismissing your life,” he said hoarsely, struggling to talk. “God knows how much your life…is worth to me. That gunshot— I was so afraid I’d lost you.”

  “Oh, Dev. When I saw the blood—” The terror flooded over her again. Tears poured down her face as she shoved it back. He was okay. He was going to be fine.

  He lifted a hand and caught one of the tears with his finger. “Thought you weren’t a crier.”

  She wrapped her hand around his. “And I thought you weren’t a hero.” She brought his hand to her lips and kissed it. “You’re hurting. I can see it in your face. You need to rest.”

  He fell back on the pillow. “Yeah.” His voice was hardly more than a whisper, and his quick agreement dismayed her. He was no doubt in a lot more pain than he let on.

  “I’ll call the nurse to increase the morphine,” she offered.

  He shook his head fractionally as he sank farther down in the bed.

  Reghan kept hold of his hand
and waited to see if the pain-etched lines in his face smoothed out. They finally did. She moved to get up.

  “Connor?” His hand squeezed hers with surprising strength.

  “I thought you were asleep.”

  “Almost.” He went quiet again.

  “I’m just going to go, so you can rest.”

  “No.” He struggled to open his eyes. He licked his lips, started to say something, stopped, and then started again. “Connor—”

  “I’m right here. Just tell me what you need.”

  “Stay.”

  She swallowed, so happy he wanted her close. “Dev, I promise. I’ll stay right here until you go to sleep. Then I’ll be right outside—”

  “No,” he whispered huskily. “Not what I meant.”

  “Oh,” she said, disappointment washing over her. “You want Penn. I can go and find—”

  He shook his head. “No,” he croaked.

  “Oh. Okay, I guess you’d rather be alone so you can sleep—”

  “Connor,” he whispered. “Can I get a word in edgewise?”

  She blinked. “Sure. I’m sorry.”

  “I want you to—” he closed his eyes. After a couple of seconds, Reghan thought he might have drifted off again. But then he opened them and said, “Stay, Reghan Maria Connor. Stay with me. Forever.”

  She felt her face drain of color. Within her heart, incredible hope and joy warred with reality. “You’re tired. You can’t mean—”

  He lifted his hand and laid his finger against her lips. “Hush. I know what I’m saying.”

  She smiled tremulously. She couldn’t help it. Happiness nearly made her dizzy. “You do?”

  His head bobbed up and down slightly. “And what I said before, too.”

  Her lips parted. Surely, he couldn’t mean… “Before?”

  “Never thought I’d say it to any woman, but…” He stopped, out of air and energy.

  Her eyes were leaking tears again, and she didn’t even try to wipe them away. She held onto his hand for dear life. Did she dare to believe…? “What, Dev?”

  “You fill a place inside me…that’s been empty a very long time. I don’t…ever want to be empty again.”

  Something deep inside her thawed, and all her reservations melted away. She knew what he meant, because her heart was completely filled with him.

  “Love you, Connor,” he whispered sleepily.

  There they were again. Those words. She hadn’t had the courage to believe them the first time. She’d never thought she’d hear them from this man, a man of honor she knew she could never, ever forget. A true hero she would never again deny. A man she would walk proudly beside for the rest of her life.

  Without letting go of his hand, she leaned over and kissed him. “I love you, too. But you’ve always known that, haven’t you?”

  He didn’t open his eyes, and his breathing became even and quiet, but his hand squeezed hers, and his lips turned upward in a smile.

  About the Author

  “Don’t mess with Mallory Kane,” says Roger Ebert, although he was probably talking about another Ms. Kane. At age three, Mallory taught herself to read, starting a lifelong love affair with books. With a librarian for a mother and a master storyteller for a father, she was destined to be a writer. Always ahead of her time, Mallory was first published electronically in 1995. Since then, in addition to a dozen or so electronic books, she has published twenty-eight romantic suspense novels with Harlequin Intrigue and five paranormal romances with ImaJinn Books. She lives in Tennessee with her husband and three cats—all Renaissance beings.

  Table of Contents

  This book is a work

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  This book is dedicated to

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  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  About the Author