The Bride And The Mercenary

“I didn’t want to tell you like this, Lee. But I’m Malone. I’ve come back.”

“No.” Ainslie shook her head. “No, Malone’s dead. You’re someone called John Smith, and right from the start you’ve come up with one crazy story after the other. You’re not Malone. I buried Malone.”

“Ask me anything about our time together.” His voice was edged. “I remember it all.”

“He made me a promise. You can’t know about that.” Ainslie heard her own voice as if it was coming from a long way away, through the enveloping mist of pain.

“I promised you I’d never leave you the way you’d been left before. You’d had a nightmare, and I heard you crying out in your sleep. I held you and you told me about your dream.” His eyes were dark as he grabbed her wrists. “Don’t you get it, Lee? I didn’t break my promise to you. I’ve come back., dammit!”

Dear Harlequin Intrigue Reader,

May holds more mayhem for you in this action-packed month of terrific titles.

Patricia Rosemoor revisits her popular series THE MCKENNA LEGACY in this first of a two-book miniseries. Irishman Curran McKenna has a gift for gentling horses—and the ladies. But Thoroughbred horse owner Jane Grantham refuses to be tamed—especially when she is guarding not only her heart, but secrets that could turn deadly. Will she succumb to this Mysterious Stranger?

Bestselling author Joanna Wayne delivers the final book in our MORIAH’S LANDING in-line continuity series. In Behind the Veil, we finally meet the brooding recluse Dr. David Bryson. Haunted for years by his fiancée’s death, he meets a new woman in town who wants to teach him how to love again. But when she is targeted as a killer’s next victim, David will use any means necessary to make sure that history doesn’t repeat itself.

The Bride and the Mercenary continues Harper Allen’s suspenseful miniseries THE AVENGERS. For two years Ainslie O’Connor believed that the man she’d passionately loved—Seamus Malone—was dead. But then she arrives at her own society wedding, only to find that her dead lover is still alive! Will Seamus’s memory return in time to save them both?

And finally, we are thrilled to introduce a brand-new author—Lisa Childs. You won’t want to miss her very first book Return of the Lawman—with so many twists and turns, it will keep you guessing…and looking for more great stories from her!

Happy reading,

Denise O’Sullivan

Associate Senior Editor

Harlequin Intrigue

The Bride and the Mercenary

Harper Allen

www.millsandboon.co.uk

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Harper Allen lives in the country in the middle of a hundred acres of maple trees with her husband, Wayne, six cats, four dogs—and a very nervous cockatiel at the bottom of the food chain. For excitement she and Wayne drive to the nearest village and buy jumbo bags of pet food. She believes in love at first sight, because it happened to her.

CAST OF CHARACTERS

Ainslie O’Connell—Two years ago she buried the only man she would ever love. But when she glimpses a stranger on the way to her wedding, she’s almost certain Malone has come back from the dead….

Seamus Malone—He was killed by a sniper’s bullet. Wasn’t he?

Terrence Sullivan—Ainslie’s P.I. brother, Sully knows that the man she loved hid a dark past. But does the man who looks like Malone have an even more dangerous secret?

Pearson McNeil—Older than Ainslie and slightly stuffy, he’s offered her his hand in marriage. Being jilted at the altar wasn’t part of the deal.

Brian McNeil—He’s angry at the way Ainslie has treated his brother. But is his anger a cover for a more deadly intention?

Paul Cosgrove—He was Malone’s partner when the two of them worked for the mysterious “Agency,” and he saw him die. Now his own life seems to have fallen apart.

Noah Watkins—He’s tracked the international assassin called the Executioner for two years. When he finds him he’ll kill him without a qualm.

The Executioner—He’s responsible for too many deaths to count, and his identity has remained a secret. But does he himself know who and what he is?

To Sean Cole with thanks.

Contents

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Epilogue

Prologue

They made little shovels especially for this, Ainslie O’Connell thought in dull wonder, taking it from the man beside her and grasping it by the handle. Who would have thought it? The shaft was of oak, so smooth that it felt like silk instead of wood, and the blade itself gleamed like polished silver. It was almost too pretty to use.

“You don’t have to do this if you don’t want to, Lee.” The low voice at her shoulder was thick with emotion. She looked up.

“No, I’m okay.” She looked down again at the shining shovel, the heap of brown loam at her feet. “But I’m not really sure how this works. Am I supposed to take a full shovelful, or is it just kind of symbolic, Paul?”

“It’s only symbolic, Lee.” His tone was edged with sadness. “Get a little dirt on the tip of the blade and then throw it onto the coffin. They’ll cover up the rest of it after we leave.”

“Oh.” Ainslie frowned in understanding. “Okay.” Hefting the delicate implement in her hands, she started to slide the blade into the pile of earth, but then she stopped. “Do they leave the flowers on top of the coffin? They don’t take the flowers off before they bury him, do they?”

“No. The flowers stay with the coffin. The roses are yours?”

“Red roses.” She nodded in agreement. “Red roses for true love. That’s why I chose them. They’re really beautiful, aren’t they?”

“Yeah, they are, sugar. He would have liked them.” Paul Cosgrove’s hand wrapped around the shovel handle next to hers, his skin almost the same color as the oak, the white sliver of shirtcuff protruding from the somber gray of his suit sleeve a snowy contrast to the brown earth and the dull red fire of the roses. “It’s time to say goodbye, Lee. That’s really what this symbolizes.”

“Oh, I don’t think so.” She gave him a startled look, shaking her head. “I’m not ready to do that. I don’t know if I’ll ever be ready.”

Her gaze clouded in confusion, and she let go of the shovel. Her gloved fingers touched her forehead. “Is this really happening, Paul? Do you think there’s any way this might be some kind of a bad dream?”

The man watching her sighed heavily, a flicker of pain passing over his features. Instead of answering her, he leaned forward, plucked one of the blood-red roses from the arrangement on the polished mahogany lid in front of them, and handed it to her. Ainslie took it from him, her eyes wide.

“Can you smell it?” he asked softly.

She brought the flower up and took in a deep breath, her lashes drifting onto her cheekbones as she did so. Yes, she could smell it, Ainslie thought. The scent was intoxicating—wine and perfume and a lover’s kiss all swirled together in one heartbreakingly lovely scent. The cold petals felt like velvet against her lips.

And then she knew. Her eyes flew open and met his.

“But…but I loved him, Paul!” she whispered, her voice cracking in urgency. “You don’t understand—he can’t be gone! I can’t have lost him!”

“You didn’t lose him.” The big man took the rose gently from her and handed it to the woman standing slightly behind them. He placed Ainslie’s hand back on the shovel. “You didn’t lose him, Lee. He’ll always be in your heart.”

Unresistingly she let him slide the tip of the spade into the crumbling earth. When the two of them had lifted the shovel, he let his hand fall away. With a suddenly frightened glance at him she saw his encouraging nod, and slowly turned her attention back to the task in front of her.

The silver blade held little more than a palmful of dirt, but that was enough to dull its shining surface. It was pretty, and delicately crafted, but in the end it was only a shovel, Ainslie realized. And Paul could say what he wanted about symbolism, but his words were just a comforting lie.

There was nothing symbolic about what she was doing. She was filling in the grave of the man she loved.

She straightened, her shoulders thrown back and her feet planted slightly apart for balance. She felt Paul’s hand on her arm and shrugged it off almost angrily. Bringing the shovel up, she held it over the lowered coffin and tipped it sideways.

The clod of earth fell onto the polished lid with a terrible thudding sound. On the other side of her she heard the priest sigh and then begin intoning words she’d heard in movies and read in books, but that she’d never really listened to before.

“Ashes to ashes, dust to dust—”

“He’s not in there, you know,” Ainslie said loudly. “I think I’ll go home and wait for him. Celeste, can I have my rose back, please?”

She grabbed the flower from Paul’s startled wife, and began to push her way through the black-clad crowd. She took three determined steps.

Then she fainted and Paul, darting forward, caught her.

Chapter One

“I look like a blob of pistachio fudge in this stupid dress, Aunt Lee. And when am I ever going to wear green satin shoes again in my life?”

“Next St. Patrick’s Day?” Ainslie gave her fourteen-year-old adopted daughter an unsympathetic glance and looked out the limo window. “Jeez, it’s a real October breeze out there. I hope this darn crown thing stays on.”

“It’s not a crown, it’s a headpiece,” muttered Tara, flopping back dramatically against the seat. Then she relented, peering at Ainslie through silky, for-this-occasion-only, mascaraed lashes. “Don’t worry, Aunt Lee, it’ll stay on. You look beautiful—the perfect bride.”

“Please.” Ainslie’s voice was gruff. “I don’t feel any more comfortable in this getup than you do. Why I couldn’t have worn a simple suit and tied the knot at city hall, I don’t know.”

“Because Pearson’s rich and stuffy and comes from one of Boston’s oldest families, maybe?” Tara looked immediately stricken. “Sorry. But he is an awful lot older than you, and he does seem to care about doing the right thing all the time. Doesn’t that bug you just a little?”

Ainslie framed her answer carefully. “Sometimes, pumpkin. Just like sometimes I guess it bugs him that I still run the gym downtown and manage a couple of the boxers. But he loves me and he wants me to be happy, so he makes compromises. And I want him to be happy, so I compromised on this wedding.”

“Compromised?” The teenager snorted. “What did he want originally, if this was the compromise?”

Tara had a point, Ainslie thought. In a few minutes they would be pulling up in front of St. Margaret’s Cathedral. There would be a red carpet leading up the stone steps to the massive church doors, and police had apparently been hired to hold back the crowds of spectators that were expected.

It was one notch down from a royal wedding, except for the bride, she told herself glumly.

“I know you like Pearson well enough,” she said reasonably. “If anyone’s supposed to get cold feet at this point it’s me, not my bridesmaid, for heaven’s sake.”

“I know.” Tara fiddled with the ribbons on her wrist. “But I’m worried you’re getting married to him mainly for my sake. You aren’t, are you, Auntie Lee?” She looked up at Ainslie, her smooth young features troubled. “Because if you are we could stop it right now. We could tell the driver to turn around and you could phone Uncle Sully at the church and—”

“Sweetie, calm down!” With a little laugh, Ainslie leaned over and clasped both of Tara’s hands in hers. She met the suddenly brimming eyes with a mixture of love and concern on her features. “Of course I’m not getting married just for your sake. Where in the world did you get that idea?”

“From Uncle Sully.” Tara’s flooded gaze widened in alarm and she hastened to elaborate. “Well, not exactly. I overheard him talking to Bailey about it. He said Pearson might be an old stick in the mud, but that your main concern was making sure I had a stable home and a father.”

“Your uncle Sully has no idea what he’s talking about,” Ainslie said tartly. “Listen to me, pumpkin, and listen good. I’m marrying Pearson because I want to marry Pearson. In fact, you were the reason I didn’t accept his proposal when he first popped the question.”

Tara looked dubiously at her, and she gave the girl’s hands a little shake. “Scout’s honor. I wanted to be sure you felt comfortable with this, too.”

“I guess I do, really. It’s just that he tries so hard to be nice all the time—buying us presents, telling you there’s no need for you to keep working at the gym.” Tara stuck her bottom lip out stubbornly and suddenly she looked very young, despite the mascara. “What does he have against boxing anyway? He never comes to the ring.”

“He’s old-fashioned enough to think that boxing’s a man’s sport—and even then he wouldn’t be caught dead at the fights.” Ainslie sighed. “I’m not going to make myself over into some society matron, if that’s what you’re worried about. We O’Connell females are a rough, tough breed, and Pearson knows that.” She slanted a quizzical gaze at Tara, and the outthrust lip curved into a reluctant smile.

“I’m sorry, Aunt Ainslie. I didn’t mean to spoil your wedding day. I just wanted to be sure you were happy.”

“I’m happy,” Ainslie replied promptly. “I’d be happier if I hadn’t let the saleswoman talk me into this ridiculous outfit. I look like Marie Antoinette dressed up as a shepherdess, for heaven’s sake.”

“Yeah, kind of,” Tara said judiciously, tipping her head to one side and then dodging Ainslie’s mock slap with a giggle. She sobered again. “But you do love him, right? Like Uncle Sully loves Bailey?”

She’d never lied to Tara, Ainslie thought regretfully, but there was no way she could answer that particular question with the truth. She fudged, telling herself it was in a good cause.

“O’Connell women only fall in love once, and that’s it for the whole of their lives,” she said. “Do you think I’d be marrying Pearson if he wasn’t the one?”

“I guess not,” Tara said slowly. She kept her gaze fixed on Ainslie’s for a second longer, as if looking for reassurance. Whatever she saw there seemed to satisfy her, and she straightened in her seat. “We’re almost there, Aunt Lee. Are you nervous?”

“I’d ten times rather be going into the ring to face Holy-field. Does that answer your question?” Ainslie put her hands gingerly to the headpiece to make sure it was straight, and managed to pull her veil sideways just as St. Margaret’s hove into view.

“Great,” she muttered. “By the time we drop you off at the side entrance I’ll be looking like a—” She blanched. “Oh, my God, it’s worse than I thought it would be. Look at all those people! Don’t they have lives?”

Oblivious to the fact that the limo windows were heavily tinted, Tara regally tilted a palm back and forth until they turned the corner and left the crowd behind. “Wow, this might actually be fun. There’s that cute usher getting off his motorcycle in the parking lot.”

“Don’t even think about it. Motorcycles are dangerous—why do you think I stopped riding them?” Ainslie said distractedly. “Okay, pumpkin, this is where you get out.”

Tires crunching over the gravelled parking lot, the limousine rolled to a stop, and almost instantly the uniformed driver was at their door. As he opened it Tara threw her arms around Ainslie impulsively, hugging her tight.

“I love you, Aunt Lee. If you’re happy, then I’m happy.”

How many times had she held this precious gift of a daughter close? Ainslie wondered, her own eyes tearing as she fiercely hugged Tara back. When her cousin Babs had died of leukemia, leaving the seven-year-old daughter she’d had out of wedlock in Ainslie’s care, she’d already been head over heels in love with the little girl. All the O’Connell clan had adored the child, and even Ainslie’s half brother Terry Sullivan had taken one look at her and handed her his heart. Tara had never wanted for love, and she had given it back in return.

But she hadn’t ever known the permanent presence of a father, and sometimes Ainslie had worried about that. Pearson would fill that void, she thought, giving Tara one last too tight squeeze.

“I’ll see you in there, pumpkin,” she said, clearing her throat and blinking rapidly. “I guess I’d better go run the gauntlet now. If your uncle Sully isn’t waiting for me on that darn red carpet, I’m going to have his hide.”

“He’ll be there.” Tara stepped out of the car, and then popped a thoughtful face back in. “Unless Megan Angelique picked today to be born. Bailey said she’s been feeling like the Goodyear Blimp these last few days.”

With a quick wave she turned and ran to the side entrance of the church, where Ainslie could see a knot of females already waiting for her. The O’Connell women, she thought fondly, catching a glimpse of her aunts Cissie and Jackie before her view was cut off by the driver closing the car door. A moment later the limo pulled sedately out of the parking lot and onto the street.

Ainslie folded her hands in the creamy satin and lace of her lap and chewed nervously at her bottom lip, wishing the day was over.

Immediately she felt a pang of contrition. Pearson had meant well when he’d arranged their wedding. He came from a different strata of society than she did—not to mention a different generation, she admitted honestly to herself—and this was the way things were done in his circle.

So how come when he finally decided to marry he picked a single mom twenty years his junior and an ex-boxer to boot? she wondered as she’d so often done before. But she knew the answer to that—at least, she knew the answer he’d given her.

“Don’t sell yourself short, Ainslie.” He never called her Lee, which was just one more instance, she supposed, of the stuffiness that Tara had referred to. “You’ve got a lot going for you. You’ve built up that derelict gymnasium of your aunt’s into a going concern, you’ve raised Tara as if she were your own child, and you even mended the relationship with your half brother, Terrence, despite the way his father left you and your mother in the lurch when you were a child. I look at you and I see strength. I admire that.”

“As long as it’s out of the boxing ring,” Ainslie hadn’t been able to resist adding, and his handsome features had relaxed into a rare smile.

“You can’t blame a man for not wanting to see the woman he loves take a beating in front of a crowd of lowlifes and riffraff, can you?”

“I prefer to think of them as paying customers, not riffraff,” she’d answered with a touch of tartness. “And I didn’t exactly stand around and take a beating, as you put it. I retired a champ, Pearson. Now I coach future champs. Boxing is an empowering sport for a lot of women.”

And it helped save my sanity two years ago, when I didn’t know if I could go on, she might have said, but didn’t. Pearson didn’t know about that part of her past. There was no reason for him to know. The girl she’d been then was dead, and the man that girl had loved was dead, too.

She hadn’t lied to Tara. The O’Connell females were one-man women. He’d been her first love, her last love, and her only love. She’d been twenty-five years old when she’d seen Malone’s coffin lowered into the cold, black earth, and she’d known that her own life had ended with his.

For a while she’d gone a little crazy, she realized now. Paul Cosgrove had been his partner, and although the government agency they both worked for was so security-conscious that it didn’t even have a name, he’d bent the rules enough to tell her that Malone had been shot in front of his very eyes. Although Paul had gotten him to a hospital, Malone hadn’t survived the head wound he’d sustained—a head wound so horrific that there had been no question of having an open coffin at the funeral.

But even hearing the terrible details of his death from the man who’d witnessed it hadn’t helped her to accept the reality of his passing.

For three whole days after his funeral she’d sat in her darkened apartment all alone, not bothering to change out of the somber black suit she’d been wearing. Only when Paul had actually pounded on her door, demanding to know if she was all right, had she roused herself enough to tell him to go away before returning to her vigil.

Because that had been what it was. For three days and three nights she’d sat, her hands folded quietly on her lap, her eyes open wide in the shadowy gloom, waiting for Seamus Malone to come back to her. Not from the dead. She just hadn’t accepted that he’d been killed. She’d been convinced it had all been some kind of insane trick.

And then on the third day she’d finally fallen into a state of semi-consciousness—not sleep, not true wakefulness, but a limbo halfway between the two. In it she’d relived every moment she’d ever had with him, from the moment they’d first met only a few weeks before, to the last time he’d left her arms. Measured in days, their time together had been cruelly short. But time was an irrelevant yardstick for what they’d had.

In two weeks they’d made a lifetime of memories.

They’d so nearly missed knowing each other at all. On a rare impulse she’d dropped by Sully’s house one night after seeing Tara off with a schoolfriend at Logan Airport. The month-long trip to Arizona had been planned for ages and Ainslie knew that the Cartwells would look after Tara as if she were their own daughter.

That night Sully had casually introduced her to his guest.

She’d stared into a pair of brilliant green eyes, and that had been it. Twenty minutes later, Malone and she had left a bemused Sullivan and had gone out to a Thai restaurant together. Two hours later they’d walked hand in hand along Beacon Street, then ended up back at her apartment and making love. The next morning, just before dawn, Malone had shakily told her he couldn’t imagine life without her.

Love at first sight really happened. They’d had it, and it had lasted, right up until the end.

On their last night together he’d asked her to marry him. She’d thrown her arms around his neck tightly enough to knock him backward onto the sofa. Half laughing, half tearfully, she’d told him yes, and in the middle of their kiss his pager had gone off. Forever after, Ainslie had wondered how things would have turned out if he’d ignored it, but wondering was futile.

He’d answered the page. He’d left her apartment a few minutes later, after one last, hard kiss and a quick grin, telling her he wouldn’t be gone long. Sometime in the hour that followed, he’d been killed.

It had been her love for Tara that had finally forced her to pick up the pieces of her shattered life and rebuild some kind of existence after Malone’s death. On the fourth day after his funeral, she’d stripped off the clothes she’d been wearing and stood under the shower until the hot water ran out. Then she’d pulled on a sweater and a pair of jeans, balled the black suit into a paper bag and thrown it down the garbage chute at the end of the hall. She’d returned to her apartment, taken a deep, shuddering breath and firmly closed a door in her mind.

But she still dreamed about him every night—saw those brilliant green eyes, that midnight-black hair, his slow smile. She hadn’t let those dreams stop her from agreeing to marry Pearson, however. Tara needed a father. Pearson wanted a wife. And what she’d told Tara a few minutes ago had been true—he was a good man, and she cared for him. He knew she wasn’t madly in love with him, but that wasn’t what he was looking for, he’d told her quietly. Mutual affection, the shared goal of creating a family of their own one day—if she could give him that, he would make sure that Tara never wanted for anything.