Dealing with Annie Read online

  “She didn’t do anything to you. I did. It’s me you want. Let’s make a trade—”

  “Oh, it’s you I most definitely want,” Tony agreed. “I want your world to unravel as mine has. Are you suffering yet, Ian?”

  “I—”

  Click.

  Ian slammed the phone down and eyed the brass staring at him. “I’ve got to get back to Cooper’s Corner. Now.”

  * * *

  THEY FLEW A HELICOPTER INTO Cooper’s Corner, with the full support of three different agencies, all of whom wanted to talk to Tony. Behind bars.

  Ian just wanted Annie, safe and preferably in his arms. He’d called Thomas, but his brother hadn’t answered and was most likely working outside. He’d then called Annie’s house, not knowing what to expect, and had gotten a sleepy Aunt Gerdie, who upon completely waking up, discovered she’d been locked in her room.

  Ian had really panicked over that. “Yell for Annie,” he’d directed.

  But Aunt Gerdie had gotten no response, and she could hear nothing from the other side of her locked bedroom door.

  According to Aunt Gerdie, the house was ominously silent, and the knowledge had Ian sitting there in the chopper imagining everything that could be happening to Annie right this very second.

  All because of him.

  As they rode through the storm and into the Berkshires, Ian tried to console himself with the fact that Tony was not a cold-blooded killer. He and his gang had killed only the scum of the earth, and all in the supposed name of justice.

  They’d never murdered an innocent.

  But that was before Ian had shot and nearly killed Tony.

  * * *

  “HERE’S WHAT WE’RE GOING to do,” said the raspy voice in Annie’s ear. “I’m going to put you in my truck, where you’ll sit like a good girl or I’ll knock you out.” He rubbed the muzzle of the gun over her jaw. “You’re coming home with me, Annie, so get used to that idea.”

  Annie slammed her eyes shut and shuddered. This wasn’t happening. This couldn’t be happening. “I don’t understand…”

  “Don’t you? It’s a revenge game, and tag, you’re it.”

  He had his hand over her mouth, and part of her nose, so that she felt as if she were suffocating, which was taking up a good part of her concentration. With all her weight, she stomped on his foot. When he bent over, she plowed her elbow into his belly. Just like in the movies.

  But unlike the movies, he didn’t drop to the ground. Instead he growled and shoved her toward the front door.

  Before she could run, he was on her, grabbing her arm, hauling open the door. The storm blew in, icy snowflakes and wind hit them full in the face. Annie didn’t have a coat or shoes on, just a thin blouse and pants, but that didn’t seem to worry her captor.

  Two steps off the porch, they heard a helicopter. With a nasty oath and hard, vicious hands, Tony jerked Annie back into the house, then shoved her out of his way. She fell into her old-fashioned umbrella stand in the foyer.

  Head still down, she came up to her knees, her fist wrapped around her neatly folded, heavy-duty umbrella.

  “Get up,” he snarled behind her. “Damn it, get up. We’ll go out the back.”

  When she didn’t move fast enough, he grabbed her by the back of her neck and pulled her up.

  Using the momentum, she let it take her, swinging out with the umbrella with all her strength as she went, clobbering Tony along the side of his head.

  Without a sound, he toppled like a ton of lead.

  She was still standing there, swaying in shock, staring down at the lifeless body when the front door slammed open.

  Then there were uniformed officers everywhere, shouting, and one man not wearing a uniform.

  “Annie.” Ian held her against him so close she couldn’t tell where she ended and he began. He squeezed her so tight she could hardly breathe, but that was okay, she didn’t need air, she didn’t need anything in that moment but him.

  “My God.” He sank his fingers in her hair and tipped her face up.

  “I take it that was your vigilante,” she said shakily. “Tony.”

  “Yes, he’s Steve’s brother…he found me here in Cooper’s that very first day by pretending to be my commander’s assistant, calling Thomas, claiming to be sending flowers—Never mind. Are you all right?”

  “Aunt Gerdie—”

  “She’s fine, she’s locked in her room. Did he touch you, are you hurt—”

  “No.” She put her face to the crook of his neck and breathed him in. “I’m fine, thanks to you.”

  He sagged in relief but didn’t let her go. “Thanks to me?” A rough laugh escaped him. “You were nearly killed because of me. You didn’t need me at all.”

  Annie went still, then tilted her face up to look into his. She threw caution and all her anal tendencies out the window, because she had to do this, she could have died without doing this, and that would have been the crime. “You’re wrong about that, Ian.”

  The look on his face assured her he wasn’t told he was wrong very often. “I do need you,” she whispered. “I need you right this minute, just to hold me. I need you tomorrow, just to hold me. And Ian…I think I’m going to need you forever.”

  “Annie—”

  “No. Wait. Please? I have to say this right this very minute or I’ll start thinking, overanalyzing, and then it’s quite possible I’ll talk myself out of—”

  “Annie.” Looking shaken, he backed her farther into the living room, passing uniformed officers and the mess she’d created fighting Tony. His jaw ticked, his eyes darkened, but he never took his hands off her as he lowered her to the couch, ignoring everyone around them. “Just say it.”

  “Yeah.” She swallowed hard, looking into his beautiful, tense face. “Just say it. I—”

  “Goddamn it.” He stroked her jaw with a light, tender touch while fury raged in his eyes. “You have a bruise. Ice!” he bellowed over his shoulder. “She needs ice!” He whipped back to her. “Where else are you hurt? Where else did he touch you—”

  “Ian.” Laughing a little, she gathered his hands in hers. “I’m having a hard time here.”

  He grimaced and gathered her close. “I know, baby, I know. I swear, if I could do it again, I’d kill him before he could touch you—”

  “No.” She took his face in her hands. “That’s not what I meant. It’s just that tonight I realized so many things. Life is more important than work, did you know that? It has to be lived, even lived on the edge, lived every single moment of every single day because you never know when it could be ripped out from beneath you—”

  “Annie—”

  “Ian, don’t take this wrong, but if you interrupt me one more time I’m going to get violent.”

  He blinked. “Okay.”

  “I’m trying to say that I blamed you for keeping me out of your life, when I did the very same thing to you. I didn’t let you in, either, not even when we made love, because in my experience people…” Do it. Say it. “People…”

  “People leave you,” he finished gently. “Is that it, Annie?”

  “Yes.”

  His eyes blazed with emotion. Empathy, affection and so much more that her own eyes filled as she put a finger to his lips when he would have spoken. “I know it wasn’t fair to judge you on my past,” she said. “But that’s exactly what I did. I’m sorry, Ian.”

  “Annie—”

  She pushed her finger tighter against his lips, ensuring his silence. “And there’s…something else.” This was hard. Harder than clobbering Tony over the head. “I want to let you in now because…” Her smile wobbled. “Because I think I’ve fallen in love with you.”

  Grasping her fingers, he pulled them away from his mouth. “You think you’ve fallen in love with me?”

  “Y-yes.” She stared into his eyes, trying to decide how he felt about that. As she watched, his eyes went suspiciously shiny.

  “Annie, do you know what I intended to do toni