Close Cover (Masters and Mercenaries #16)(96)

Lisa hugged her sisters tight. “There’s nothing to forgive, but you have to be nice to my fiancé and you can’t be all snobby around his family. Or the customers at my new establishment. Or the gator. I’ve heard Otis can be sensitive about stuff.”

Lila’s eyes had gone wide. “Please tell me you’re joking. At least about the alligator.”

Taggart was shaking his head as he stood next to Will. “You seriously raised all that estrogen?”

“How I survived I do not know,” Will admitted, but he was looking at them with an indulgent smile. “But if you ever need parenting tips on the teen years, I could write a book. Your number one job?”

“I know this one,” Tag said, holding up his hand. “Keep ’em off the pole.”

“Gotta keep ’em off the pole,” Mitch said with a frown. “Laurel, we’re never having girls.”

Laurel winked Lisa’s way. They would see about that.

She settled in next to Remy as her family talked around her. They had one last job to do and then she would be free.





The morning air was almost cool as they shifted from the bay to the river, then turned off into the bayou. Darkness was all around them and the big cypress trees rose from the waters, shadowy figures that looked altogether different at night. At night the trees seemed to reach out for her, arms grasping.

“Hey, there’s nothing out here that’s going to hurt you,” Remy said as he turned the boat down some path she couldn’t detect. “You’re free out here. No one’s going to ever lock you away.”

She took a deep breath, letting the air around her remind her that she was with Remy and this was part of their home, one she intended to explore. Nothing would hold her back from making this place her home. “Thanks for letting me come with you.”

“I wouldn’t if I thought you were going to be in danger, but you deserve to be with me. This is our life, not merely mine,” Remy said. “Besides, this is one of my favorite places in the world. I want to show you. I think it’s a fitting place to start.”

“To start?”

He looked back and she could see him as the world around her began to brighten slightly. Civil twilight. Not quite dawn. “To start everything. I was wrong. I was scared before, scared of screwing things up, scared of not being enough for you. But all I have to do is love you and be a good partner to you.”

She moved in behind him, resting her head against his back. “You are everything to me.”

“And I’ve been waiting for you since I was a child, waiting to find the other half of my soul,” he said. “This is another part of my soul, chèrie, and I want to share it with you.”

The boat bumped slightly as they ran aground, and she could see they’d made it to what looked like an island in the middle of the bayou. Remy tied the boat to a tree stump and then helped her out with his good hand. She jumped the last of the way, landing in a small clearing.

“Zep and Sera and I would come out here this time of year. Always at dawn because there’s nothing like it,” he said.

“Nothing like what?”

In the low light, she watched him smile. “Wait for it. We’ve got a few minutes. We can conduct our business and let our friend be on his way.”

“Asking me to leave so quickly?” Biondo’s voice came from the other side of the small island.

Remy stepped in front of her like they were in the presence of a predator. “We just want to move on with our lives. I need to know this is over.”

The man known as Il Biondo stepped from behind one of the massive trees, coming out into the clearing. “If I get what I need.”

Men. They were making this super dramatic. She moved from behind Remy, holding her hands up to show she didn’t have anything in them because…again with the overly dramatic men.

“Thank you for what you did at the wharf. We would be dead if you hadn’t shown up.” She walked right up to the beast.

“Lisa,” Remy said under his breath.

She gave the assassin her most brilliant smile. “Can I give you a hug?”

Biondo stilled, the question seeming to completely stump him. He looked over at Remy. “Mr. Guidry?”

Remy sighed. “Go on. She’s a hugger. You’ll hurt her feelings if you don’t.”

The Italian seemed awkward as he patted her on the back. She squeezed the man, willing him to feel how grateful she was. How long had it been since he’d had a kind hand on him? Had it been since his wife and child died?

“Thank you so much for saving us,” she said.

He cleared his throat and stepped back. “I was only saving myself. You have the account number where I can access my money. Money is necessary to my lifestyle, and I don’t merely mean to buy clothes. Money protects a man like me.”

She pulled the account numbers out of her pocket. They were written on a pink sticky note and she’d finished it off with a heart. “Here are the four I remembered. I don’t know which is yours.”

“I can figure it out from here and move the money quickly,” he said with a long sigh. “Then you can be as honest as you need to be if the time comes for you to testify. It won’t matter because I’ll be gone and so will my money. The rest will be sitting there to help incriminate whoever needs to be. I’ll lay low after I do what I need to do.”