Page 62 of Resurgent
Right. I need to act like I don’t care or I’m going to blow this. I take a deep breath and shoot him a fake smile.
“Good girl.” That actually makes me smile for real. He’s businesslike as we approach the crate, prying open the lid to reveal the guns.
“Here you go, delivered as promised. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go make out with my wife and maybe even cop a feel or two while you inspect the merchandise. She’s a little shaky after that incident with Dominguez.” Lowering his voice a bit, he adds, “Whenever her mind starts to overthink things, it helps to put her to work, if you know what I mean.”
Oh my God. He did not just say that.
El Gato, who’s busy inspecting an AK-47, stops to leer at me, then winks at Liam.“Si, si. Vamos.”
Liam pulls me toward the trees. Loud enough for El Gato to hear, he says, “Fuck, that scared me, baby. I need to feel your skin, assure myself you’re alive.”
I know my part. “Not here where anyone can see us!”
Growling, Liam says, “You’re killing me, woman!” He scoops me up, throws me over his shoulder, giving my ass a smack for good measure, and runs for the trees. I catch sight of a blur of blue jeans and a white shirt—Martin Gray—heading back toward the warehouse.
There’s a loud popping noise, and suddenly, the place explodes in a mushroom of smoke.
…
“You sure you two didn’t tell Kenzie I’m alive?” Liam asks Walker and Noah for about the tenth time as we wait for the flight attendant to finish her spiel about how to work the seatbelts and oxygen masks.
“Not a word. I don’t think she’d believe us anyway,” says Walker. “We just told her we got Charlotte and found the guns, and we’d fill her in on the rest when we get home.”
“Good.” Liam sits back, satisfied. We’re sitting in that section of the airplane—a commercial flight that we all booked with our real passports—where there are two sets of double seats facing each other. I’m sitting next to Liam, and Walker and Noah are opposite us. “I want to see her face. And explain everything.”
“Like why I have a black eye?” Noah says drily.
Liam shrugs. “That was before I knew you were NCIS. I thought you were with the cartel and using her.”
“I’m pretty sure Walker mentioned I wasn’t,” Noah says dryly, but there doesn’t seem to be any animosity between the two of them. If anything, there’s the beginnings of a friendship, fueled by mutual respect.
Liam shrugs.
“I’m in love with her,” Noah says. “In fact, now’s as good a time as any to ask you this. I know Kenzie’s dad is gone, so I want to ask you. I’d like your blessing to ask her to marry me.”
My eyes well up with tears, unexpectedly touched by the raw emotion in Noah’s voice, and I wonder what it would be like to be loved so unequivocally, so completely. I want that, I realize. Maybe not today. I look over at Liam, who smiles at me lazily, making my heart squeeze in my chest. Maybe not anytime soon. It’s going to take me a while to get over Liam. I mean, I know what we had wasn’t real—we were just two people in close proximity on an adventure—but in addition to showing me how to let go and live a little, he showed me that giving up control doesn’t mean it will be like it was with my parents.
Control freaks like me think we can prevent the storms of life from coming. But everything that’s happened over the last week has showed me that no matter how hard I try to control things, the storms happen anyway. When Liam demanded I give him control, he actually gave it back to me by showing me that even when I can’t stop the storm, I can weather it.
Funny how the right person can change how you see everything. Well, the right wrong person. I sigh. While my outlook may have changed, Liam’s hasn’t. Liam still has his job and a life of adventure—not to mention a girl on every continent—waiting for him. In fact, he’ll be even more of a hero after the story of what happened in Mexico gets out.
After Liam grabbed me and ran into the woods, the drone that Martin Gray programmed to crash into the building made contact, exploding on impact. It killed El Gato and his two henchmen—whom Walker had quickly knocked out and left unconscious in the warehouse before escaping himself just before the explosion—and destroyed the crate of guns, leaving no evidence of anything.
It remains to be seen whether the CIA agent—greedy for the last crate of guns—was killed in the explosion he himself orchestrated or not. If not, the testimony of Noah, Walker, and Liam, plus the tape Anthony has, will undoubtedly send him to prison for life, and ensure Liam’s reputation will be restored.
And the head of the Nuevo Leon cartel? This morning’s news stories have been filled with rumors of the kingpin’s death, but no one knows for sure except Noah. And since he’s asking for McKenzie’s hand in marriage, my guess is he carried out what he needed to do to avenge the deaths of his wife and daughter in order to move on to the next chapter of his life with McKenzie.
I sigh again, wondering if there’ll ever be a love like that for me one day.
Liam nudges me with his knee. “Need to use the restroom?” He winks, and there’s nothing I want more. I want to do everything with him—I want to travel the world with him, exploring every new city with him by day and making love every night, giving him all of me in that way that makes his eyes darken with lust.
But he doesn’t want that. He was clear at the beginning. No-strings-attached sex. That was the deal. It’s time to let him go.
“I’m good,” I say.
Three hours later, we land in Charleston and quietly get an Uber back to McKenzie and Gemma’s apartment. The fanfare can wait. We all stand back a little as Liam knocks on the door. It’s flung open, and the color drains from McKenzie’s face. “Oh my God. Liam? Is it really you?” Tears stream down her face as she launches herself into his arms. “Liam!!”
Fifteen minutes later, after Kenzie has cried and examined Liam and given him a guilt trip for letting her go a minute longer than necessary thinking he was dead as only a sister can, Walker goes into the kitchen and comes back with beers for the guys and a bottle of wine and three glasses for me, Kenzie, and Gemma, and we all settle into the living room to fill McKenzie and Gemma in on the events of the last week. While Liam tells them about waking up in the hospital in India, his memory loss, and everything that led him to ultimately getting a fake passport and flying to Mexico to rescue me, I watch my friends.
