Page 70 of Ace
Tucker’s lips were pressed thin with determination. His coal black eyes glistened while the other agents cornered Sand Dollar. Savannah never felt more certain that this brash man whom Keller hadn’t liked from the get-go, would die before he let Keller die. Which only made her sob more. Keller wasn’t the kind of man to love her, only to leave her behind. It just wasn’t in him. She knew that now. Eden was right. He would come around. It was Savannah’s job to love him until he did.
‘I got you, buddy,’Tucker kept saying as real medics wheeled a gurney and a large medical case on wheels over the lumpy Florida grass to where he sat.‘Trust me,Kell. You belong here. The team needs you. I need you, and I got you.’
‘And I need you,’Savannah breathed to the man she loved with her whole heart.‘I need you so much, Keller.Please don’t leave me.’
‘He ain’t going nowhere,’Tucker growled deep in his throat as both young medics knelt at his side, instantly triaging Keller’s condition, talking into the two-way radios pinned to their shoulders. Barking orders. Initiating IVs. Saline solution. An antibiotic. The FBI SWAT helicopter hovered overhead, spotlighting the scene. Poor tranquilized Sand Dollar moved closer to where Tucker still held onto Keller. The goofy horse seemed just as out of it as Keller.
“Sir, excuse me,” one medic said to Tucker, “but we’ve got him now. You can let go.”
“You’d better take damned good care of my agent,” Tucker growled, his dark eyes lethal, “or so help me—"
‘Tuck, let him go,’Isaiah interjected.‘These guys are the real deal. They’re honest medics. You’re in their way, Boss. Let them do their job.’
Swallowing hard, his rigid throat muscles contracting, Tucker muttered to Keller, “I’ll be right behind you, Kell. All the way. Don’t do anything stupid.”
‘I have got to get to Florida,’Savannah murmured as the medics wheeled Keller to the waiting ambulance.
‘Count on it,’Isaiah said easily.‘There’s a jet on standby at Louis Armstrong National Airport. Call a cab. It can leave as soon as you arrive.’
‘But I have no money.’
‘But I do. Stop worrying. It’s my jet. Tell the cabbie to call me,’Isaiah rattled off a phone number, ‘and I’ll make it worth his trouble.’
‘But I have two dogs with me, and appointments I have to keep tomorrow, and—’
‘Savannah, stop with the buts,’Eden murmured.‘It’s Isaiah’s private plane. Bring the dogs. And all those appointments can wait. Keller can’t. People will understand. We’ve got your six, sister. Now call a cab, tell them you’ll be transporting two well-behaved dogs with you, and get your butt on that plane.’
‘Okay, I will.’Savannah nodded though she knew no one could see her. It felt profoundly different having this team of psychic warriors at her back. Maybe that job offer Isaiah wanted to talk to her about wasn’t such a far-fetched idea.‘Director Chase, can you hear me?’
A curt ‘What now?’came back to her.
‘When you get to the hospital, please tell Keller that I… I love him, and I don’t care if me and all my dogs have to move to Washington, DC, I’ll do anything to be with him.’
The ornery man growled,‘Tell him yourself. He’s not going anywhere.’
She was beginning to love this crazy psychic Deuces Wild team. Even Tucker Chase.
Chapter Thirty-Six
Keller stretched his back gingerly as the lovely scent of lilacs floated over him. Had to be a dream. In that dream, Savannah came to him softly, her gentle fingers a soothing balm smoothing over his blistering forehead. He reached for her. She reached for him, intertwining her fingers with his. Kissing his fingertips. Nuzzling his cheek. Loving him like she always did.
Keller wasn’t sure which dream was real, this one with Savannah in it or the one with the horse.
“I’m real, my silly Secret Agent Man,” she whispered in his ear, her breath the sweetest scent a man could ask for. Beg for. Die for.
But his eyelids were too thick and too heavy to lift. He couldn’t make his mouth speak, and his mind was already drifting away from him. From Savannah. Complex thinking was impossible. All he could tell her was,‘Stay. Please. Stay.’
‘I’m here, honey, and I’m never leaving you again. Not ever.’
The fire in his chest roared to life.‘Stay,’he told her as his fingers slipped out of hers.
‘Always,’she breathed into his mind even while she gathered his limp hand between her beautiful breasts and pressed a kiss to his forehead.‘I’m calling your doctor. Something’s not right.’
‘Yeah. Sure.’Whatever. Keller drifted then. Fevered. Angry. Sore and thirsty…
Back in Louisiana, Doctor Rudy John had a plan. The Preakness had come and gone, as had the mighty Bruce Fontenette and that waste of time and money, Sand Dollar. Stupid horse. If it hadn’t been for the wiles of Doctor Rudy John and the elixirs he manufactured out of his plain-looking little country clinic, that horse never would’ve won the Derby. Never would’ve made Fontenette the hot shit he’d thought he was, either.
Fontenette’s scheme to flood the markets with rare, exotic birds had been harebrained at best. Wealthy, grasping men who fancied themselves presidential material should stick to what they knew best, instead of thinking they knew it all. Especially when it came to dabbling in black markets. Bruce had money all right, just not enough brains to understand the intricacies of gentle, but firm mental manipulation in the underworldbusiness. It wasn’t the stock market. It was a thousand times worse. Meaner. Bloodier.
