The Complete Mackenzie Collection Read online

  Barrie felt her nerves jolt and her stomach muscles tighten as she stared across the parking deck at him. She was actually marrying this man. He looked taller than she remembered, a little leaner, though his shoulders were so wide they strained the seams of his white cotton shirt. His black hair was a bit longer, she thought, but his tan was just as dark. Except for the slight weight loss, he didn’t show any sign of having been shot only a little over two months earlier. His physical toughness was intimidating; he was intimidating. How could she have forgotten? She had remembered only his consideration, his passion, the tender care he’d given her, but he’d used no weapon other than his bare hands to kill that guard. While she had remembered his lethal competency and planned to use it on her own behalf, she had somehow forgotten that it was a prominent part of him, not a quality she could call up when she needed it and tuck away into a corner when the need was over. She would have to deal with this part of him on a regular basis and accept the man he was. He wasn’t, and never would be, a tame house cat.

  She liked house cats, but she didn’t want him to be one, she realized.

  She felt another jolt, this time of self-discovery. She needed to be safe now, because of the baby, but she didn’t want to be permanently cossetted and protected. The grueling episode in Benghazi had taught her that she was tougher and more competent than she’d ever thought, in ways she hadn’t realized. Her father would have approved if she’d married some up-and-coming ambassador-to-be, but that wasn’t what she wanted. She wanted some wildness in her life, and Zane Mackenzie was it. For all that maddening control of his, he was fierce and untamed. He didn’t have a streak of wildness; he had a core of it.

  The strain between them unnerved her. She had dreamed of him finding her and holding out his arms, of falling into them, and when she had opened the door to him today she had expected, like a fool, for her dream to be enacted. Reality was much more complicated than dreams.

  The truth was, they had known each other for about twenty-four hours total, and most of those hours had been over two months earlier. In those hours they had made love with raw, scorching passion, and he had made her pregnant, but the amount of time remained the same.

  Perhaps he had been involved with someone else, but a sense of responsibility had driven him to locate her and find out if their lovemaking had had any consequences. He would do that, she thought; he would turn his back on a girlfriend, perhaps even a fiancée, to assume the responsibility for his child.

  Again she was crashing into the brick wall of ignorance; she didn’t know anything about his personal life. If she had known anything about his family, where he was from, she would have been able to find him. Instead, he must think she hadn’t cared enough even to ask about his condition, to find out if he had lived or died.

  He was coming back to the car now, his stride as smooth and effortlessly powerful as she remembered, the silent walk of a predator. His dark face was as impassive as before, defying her efforts to read his expression.

  He opened the door and slid behind the wheel. “Transport will be here in a few minutes.”

  She nodded, but her mind was still occupied with their personal tangle. Before she lost her nerve, she said evenly, “I tried to find you. They took me back to Athens immediately, while you were still in surgery. I tried to get in touch with you, find out if you were still alive, how you were doing, what hospital you were in—anything. Dad had Admiral Lindley block every inquiry I made. He did tell me you were going to be okay, but that’s all I was able to find out.”

  “I guessed as much. I tried to call you at the embassy a couple of weeks after the mission. The call was routed to your father.”

  “He didn’t tell me you’d called,” she said, the familiar anger and pain twisting her insides. Since she’d been forced off the Montgomery, those had been her two main emotions. So he had tried to contact her. Her heart lifted a little. “After I came home, I tried again to find you, but the Navy wouldn’t tell me anything.”

  “The antiterrorism unit is classified.” His tone was absent; he was watching in the mirrors as another car drove slowly past them, looking for an empty slot.

  She sat quietly, nerves quivering, until the car had disappeared up the ramp to the next level.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, after several minutes of silence. “I know this is a lot to dump in your lap.”

  He gave her an unreadable glance, his eyes very clear and blue. “I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t want to be.”

  “Do you have a girlfriend?”

  This time the look he gave her was so long that she blushed and concentrated her attention on her hands, which were twisting together in her lap.

  “If I did, I wouldn’t have made love to you,” he finally said.

  Oh, dear. She bit her lip. This was going from bad to worse. He was getting more and more remote, as if the fleeting moment of silent communication between them when he’d asked her to marry him had never existed. Her stomach clenched, and suddenly a familiar sensation of being too hot washed over her.

  She swallowed hard, praying that the nausea that had so far confined itself to the mornings wasn’t about to put in an unexpected appearance. A second later she was scrambling out of the car and frantically looking around for a bathroom. God, did parking decks have bathrooms?

  “Barrie!” Zane was out of the car, striding toward her, his dark face alert. She had the impression that he intended to head her off, though she hadn’t yet chosen a direction in which to dash.

  The stairwell? The elevator? She thought of the people who would use them and discarded both options. The most sensible place was right there on the concrete, and everything fastidious in her rebelled at the idea. Her stomach had different ideas, however, and she clamped a desperate hand over her mouth just as Zane reached her.

  Those sharp, pale eyes softened with comprehension. “Here,” he said, putting a supporting arm around her. The outside barriers of the parking deck were waist-high concrete walls, and that was where he swiftly guided her. She resisted momentarily, appalled at the possibility of throwing up on some unsuspecting passerby below, but his grip was inexorable, and her stomach wasn’t waiting any longer. He held her as she leaned over the wall and helplessly gave in to the spasm of nausea.

  She was shaking when it was over. The only comfort she could find was that, when she opened her eyes, she saw there was nothing three stories below but an alley. Zane held her, leaning her against his supporting body while he blotted her perspiring face with his handkerchief, then gave it to her so she could wipe her mouth. She felt scorched with humiliation. The strict teachings of her school in Switzerland hadn’t covered what a lady should do after vomiting in public.

  And then she realized he was crooning to her, his deep voice an almost inaudible murmur as he brushed his lips against her temple, her hair. One strong hand was splayed over her lower belly, spanning her from hipbone to hipbone, covering his child. Her knees felt like noodles, so she let herself continue leaning against him, let her head fall into the curve of his shoulder.

  “Easy, sweetheart,” he whispered, once again pressing his lips to her temple. “Can you make it back to the car, or do you want me to carry you?”

  She couldn’t gather her thoughts enough to give him a coherent answer. After no more than a second, he evidently thought he’d given her enough time to decide, so he made the decision for her by scooping her up into his arms. A few quick strides brought them to the car. He bent down and carefully placed her on the seat, lifting her legs into the car, arranging her skirt over them. “Do you want something to drink? A soft drink?”

  Something cold and tart sounded wonderful. “No caffeine,” she managed to say.

  “You won’t be out of my sight for more than twenty seconds, but keep an eye out for passing cars, and blow the horn if anything scares you.”

  She nodded, and he hit the door lock, then closed the door, shutting her inside a cocoon of silence. She preferred the fresh air but u