Lazlo’s Last Stand

And a young man, Corbett’s son, might not be fighting for his life in a Paris hospital.

Resolved, grounded and considerably refreshed, she stepped from the shower onto a thick plush rug that was warm from the gas log fire in the Italian-tile fireplace nearby. Picking up an equally toasty towel, she dried her hair, then her body, wincing a bit when the soft Egyptian cotton grazed over the skinned places on her legs and elbows. She slipped into the snowy white robe, then leaned close to the mirror to inspect her normally even, cafe-au-lait complexion, though her cheeks were more dusky rose now from the heat of the shower, and her nose and forehead glistened with a fine sheen of moisture. Odd, she thought, how such incredible things can happen, things that change everything, even who we are, and yet nothing shows.

My face is the same…exactly the same. And yet, I feel as though I’m looking at the face of a stranger.

Shaking off a small residual chill, she combed her fingers through the damp tangle of her curls, gave the robe’s belt tie a final tug and opened the bathroom door.

And felt all her newly built buttresses crumbling like gingerbread in the rain.

“I’m sorry,” Corbett said, his voice diffident to the point of gruffness. “I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask for your help.”

He was standing in the dressing-room doorway, dressed only in a pair of black cargo pants, his body outlined in the rich red-gold textures of the bedroom behind him. One hand was braced on the doorframe; the other he held tightly across his ribs, as if, at that moment, it was the only thing keeping his torso from breaking apart. At his feet lay a pile of elastic bandage, half of it still neatly rolled. The other end originated somewhere in the coils that had fallen loosely about his waist.

“I can see that.” The words were from her own throat but came so calmly, so easily they seemed to have been spoken by someone else. As she moved toward him she was enveloped in the heady blend of scents peculiar to a fastidious, well-groomed man: leather and lamb’s wool, Bay Rum and cedar, a trace of expensive pipe tobacco. She hadn’t noticed it before, but now it seemed exotic and at the same time oddly familiar. Almost dizzy with it, she bent to gather up the pile of unwound bandage from the floor.

“Dropped the damn thing.” Corbett’s voice rumbled above her, muted and angry. “Can’t seem to bend over. These ribs…”

“Maybe you shouldn’t have dashed out of the hospital before they had a chance to patch you up.” She straightened, aware of the heat in her cheeks and glad to have a legitimate reason for it. “Your ribs are probably broken-cracked, at least.”

“We were in a bit of a hurry,” he snapped back at her. “As I recall. And there’s not much they could have done in any case. Nothing I can’t do myself just as well. Here, give me that.”

She held the roll of bandage away from him as he reached for it. “Oh, yeah, I can see you’re doing a bang-up job.” She kept her eyes on her hands, watched them rapidly roll up the unwound pile of bandage. When she’d run out of slack and the taut bandage was a short tether between them, she lifted her eyes and forced them to meet his. And found them sharp as frost crystals. Her heartbeat was hard and fast. She took a breath. “Hold out your arms.”

This is intolerable, Corbett thought, as he reluctantly obeyed. He knew from personal experience that there were worse tortures, but at the moment couldn’t seem to think of one. His heart was thumping against his injured ribs, and even that small assault was painful.

He knew she was right. She could do the job better and, what was more important right now, faster than he could. But how in bloody hell could he stand having her so near, for as long as it would take her to bind up his ribs, when she was warm from the shower and smelled so sweet, and he could almost taste the dew on her skin.

“All right, but do it tightly,” he said, holding himself ramrod straight and grinding the words between his teeth. “It’s got to be tight enough to keep my chest from expanding when I breathe.”

She gave him a withering glance. “That’s totally wrong, you know. You have to be able to breathe, even if it hurts. And when you breathe, your chest expands-even I know that much.”

He rolled his eyes, then glared at her. “Must you argue about this? It’s only for the trip-it’s likely to jostle a bit, and I’d just as soon not have to deal with the humiliating possibility that I might pass out from the pain. Do you mind?”

“Oh, all right,” she grumbled, glaring back at him. “You know, it would really help if you could relax. Here, hold this.”

He took the end of the bandage from her and clamped it snugly against his left pectoral, just above his wildly thumping heart, like someone pledging undying fealty. He set his jaw and stared fixedly over her tangle of fragrant curls with his face frozen in what he hoped was an expression of heroic stoicism.

Ignoring his efforts, Lucia drew the bandage in a diagonal line across his chest, ducked under his extended arm and moved behind him. And only then did he allow his eyes to close.

Some dark angel inside him couldn’t resist needling her. “That’s not going to be tight enough.”

She snarled back at him. “I’m just getting it started-do you mind? Just…stop trying to boss me, okay? You’re not my teacher anymore.”

The silence which followed that declaration-startled, on his part, and judging from the set of her mouth and chin when she glared at him around his shoulder, wounded on hers-stretched between them until it became excruciating. And all that time her words careened and ricocheted wildly inside his head, setting off little explosions of enlightenment wherever they struck.

I’m not her teacher.

She’s a grown woman.

I’ve been treating her like a child.

No wonder she’s angry.

I owe her my life.

What did she mean by that?

Dear God, how angry is she?

His stomach did a curious little flip-flop he hated to acknowledge was fear.

“What on earth possessed you?” She was squarely in front of him again, her gaze fixed on the center of his chest, each cheek sporting a bright spot of pink. “To let him get so close? What if he’d shot you in the neck, or your face?” Her eyes lifted and flashed at him, diamond bright with fury. “Did you even think about that?”

Forgetting he couldn’t, Corbett tried to draw a deep breath. He hissed shallowly, then pressed his lips together and waited until he had control of the pain again. Because he knew she was right, he tried his best to explain what was inexplicable. But how could he explain what had made him hesitate when he didn’t know himself?

“I didn’t want to spook him, I suppose,” he said tightly. “Afraid he might blow the attempt again…try to run for it. I wanted to take him alive.”

And he could have kicked himself for the last sentence when she looked up at him and he saw the bleakness, the stark fear in her eyes. His tired mind cast about for words that wouldn’t make her feel worse than she already did, but he rejected them all as platitudes. Meaningless cliches. The one thing he thought of doing that might conceivably ease her heart and mind, he also rejected. Because he hadn’t the right. She was dead on about his not being her teacher anymore, but he wasn’t her lover, either. He wasn’t even her friend, not really, even though he cared for her. A lot. But he had no right to take her in his arms. No right to hold her against his heart, stroke her hair, kiss her tear-damp eyelids, whisper reassurances against her lips before he kissed them, too.

No, he had no right.

But, oh, how I want to.

“And…you had no idea he was your son?” she asked it in a hesitant whisper.

Overwhelmed by his thoughts, he could only shake his head.

“Corbett, I’m so sorry-I didn’t mean to shoot him. If I could have hit him harder-disabled him-maybe he wouldn’t have been able to go for the gun…”

He couldn’t stand it. He clutched her by the arms, and the remaining roll of bandage fell once more to the floor. Her anguished eyes stared up at him as words grated harshly from between his tightly clenched teeth.

“Stop it. Just…stop it right now. You did what you were trained to do. What I trained you to do. You did what you had to do to save another agent’s life. My life…as it happens.” His attempt at a smile was a miserable failure.