A Billionaire's Redemption (19 page)

The seat belt gave way all at once and Willa nearly fell out the passenger window before he could grab her under the armpits. The car jerked hard and one of the saplings snapped in half. Crap. With that tree gone, it would throw all that much more weight on the remaining trees. They could all fail at any second.

He backed out of the car fast, relieved to get his weight on the ground, as steep and slippery as it was. He dragged Willa awkwardly through the windshield. Her shirt tore on a piece of metal and the loud tearing sound startled him.

She stirred faintly, and flapped her arms feebly. He nearly lost his grip on her as the car lurched again, the sapling under the engine cracking and giving way in slow motion.

Crap, crap, crap.
Sitting on his rear end on the steep slope, he dragged Willa up and over the engine block of her ruined car. Another sapling gave way with a loud, sudden crack like a gunshot.

Hugging Willa against him, he lay down entirely, her body on top of his. He was able to let go of her long enough to lash the rope around her, looping it under her armpits in a makeshift navy loop. The car shifted beside them, rolling slowly onto its roof as branches snapped one by one in a stately progression toward oblivion.

He pushed against the loose shale with his heels, moving himself and Willa a few inches up the steep slope. Again. A few more inches. He grabbed the rope above Willa’s head with one hand and heaved hard as he pushed with his feet. That gained them a full foot. The car flipped over quickly below them then. It rolled from its roof onto the passenger side, perched there for a breathless moment, and then plunged over the edge, swallowed by the yawning abyss below.

Crashing noises followed by ominous silence marked the end of Willa’s car. The cliff loomed above them, and only a thin length of nylon stood between the two of them and the same fate as her car.

It was a tortuously slow journey up the cliff. Stones rolled out from under his feet and dug into his back painfully as he made his way back up the slope with Willa sprawled on top of him. His arms ached, then burned like fire, then went numb and heavy under the strain of hauling both of them up the mountain, inch by agonizing inch.

It gave him plenty of time to think about what would have happened to her if he hadn’t come back to look for her again. Plenty of time to ponder his life without Willa, with only a hole in his heart where she used to live. Plenty of time to make peace with the fact that he loved this woman, age difference or not, parentage or not, social status or not. And most important of all, whether or not she returned his feelings.

He had given her his love without any expectation of payment in kind, and the notion shocked him. Was this that selflessness people talked about when the subject of true love came up? He’d always rolled his eyes at those sappy souls. Love was about bargaining like everything else in life.

Lord knew it had been a coldly calculated deal between him and Melinda. I help your career, you help mine. I boost your social standing, you boost my image. It had been purely a business deal between them, but they’d both been either too jaded or too damned ignorant of what love was to know they hadn’t gotten it right at all. Hell, in retrospect, he doubted Melinda had ever loved anyone in her entire life. For that matter, neither had he. Until now.

He grunted and groaned, straining for every inch of progress up that damned cliff, carrying Willa along with him. As painful as it was.

* * *

They had almost reached the top when she roused again.

Disoriented, she tried to push up to her hands and knees and succeeded in causing a mini-avalanche that slid them a dozen heart-stopping feet back down the cliff before he was able to dig in hard enough with his heels to stop the plunge toward death.

“Don’t move,” he grunted as he gripped her tightly against him with both arms. She struggled weakly and he tried again to get through to her. “Willa. It’s Gabe. I’ve got you. I need you to relax and trust me. Let me do all the work.”

Whether she heard him or not, he couldn’t tell. But she subsided against him once more and he went back to work climbing that damned cliff bit by painful bit.

Finally, his head cleared the slope. He pushed once more and his shoulders reached the edge of the road. One more big push and he was able to roll onto his side, laying Willa on the road’s shoulder. Breathing hard, he dragged himself up one last time by the rope and landed on the flat road beside Willa. Panting, he pushed to his feet. His arms were in so much pain, he barely registered the gravel grinding into his palms and scraping them raw.

Exhausted, he summoned the strength to lift Willa in his arms. He laid her in the back of the SUV, climbed in the vehicle and carefully U-turned on the narrow road to point it down the mountain. Driving as fast as he dared, he headed back to Vengeance Hospital.

Most of the news crews had left, along with the fire department and their barricades. He pulled up in front of the emergency-room door and raced around to the back of the Escalade. He picked up Willa, who was still unconscious, and hurried into the emergency room with her.

The same nurse Melinda had snapped at took one look at the two of them and ordered, “This way.”

He followed her into the examining room across the hall from Melinda’s and laid Willa on the bed there. He wasn’t surprised as another nurse and the doctor who’d treated Melinda shoved him aside. But he was surprised as a third nurse took him by the arm and led him into the next room.

“She’s the one who’s hurt. Not me,” he protested.

“Have you looked at yourself in a mirror?” she asked.

“No.”

“How does your back feel?”

Now that she mentioned it, his back did burn a bit. “I guess it hurts a little.”

“What happened to you? It looks like a mountain lion attacked you.”

Oh.
All of a sudden, his entire body felt like raw hamburger. “That would be the stones, I suppose. I had to carry Willa up a cliff. It was so steep I had to lie on my back and push us up the slope.”

“I’m going to cut off your shirt, Mr. Dawson. And then I’m going to clean out your cuts and see if any of them need stitches. This might sting a little.”

He yelped as the nurse’s idea of a little sting hit his skin. Acid wouldn’t have hurt much more, he reflected as he tried to distract himself from the fire on his back. The next several minutes were spent in grim silence while the nurse worked, and he gasped periodically.

Finally, she announced, “All done. Mostly scratches and contusions. It’s going to be uncomfortable for a few days, but it should heal up. I’ll have the doc come take a look at you when he’s done with the young woman.”

“How is she?”

“Now, how would I know?” the nurse asked gently. “I’ve been in here the whole time taking care of you.”

“Could you check for me? Is she going to be all right?”

“Are you family?”

“Might as well be. She’s got no one else. Well, technically, her mother’s alive, but that woman’s less than useless right now. Her mom’s the reason she was out driving on that dangerous road, anyway.”

The nurse left without comment and he swore under his breath, agonizing. Willa had to be okay. She
had
to. He prayed hard then, making every bargain with God he could think of if He would just save Willa’s life.

The nurse poked her head back in a few minutes later. “Since you’re not family I can’t say anything, but if you were family, I’d tell you your friend is alive.”

“What else would you tell me?” he asked anxiously.

“She hit her head. Concussion. Going to have to spend a day or two here for observation at a minimum. She’s gone for an MRI to rule out any internal injuries, but initial indications don’t show anything life threatening. She’s regained consciousness. Is asking for you. As soon as she’s done getting scanned, you can see her.”

Gabe jumped up off the edge of the bed and gave the nurse a big hug.

“Easy, there,” she exclaimed. “I just got your bleeding stopped. Don’t make me clean you up twice.”

He let go and stepped back sheepishly.

“By the way, your ex-wife has been moved to a room. The doctor wanted to release her, but she made such a stink about it that he finally gave in. What a bi—” the nurse broke off. “Uhh, interesting woman, your wife.”

He replied blandly, “She can be quite a bitch, too.”

The nurse smiled broadly at him. “There’s a big pile of paperwork out front for you to fill out when you have a moment.”

He nodded, and spent the next half hour filling out the required insurance forms and questionnaires on himself and Willa. He indicated that he would pay for any medical costs her insurance didn’t cover.

He glanced at the big clock on the wall. Nearly eleven o’clock. If he was lucky, Melinda would be asleep by now, and this obligatory sympathy visit would be short and sweet.

Nonetheless, he got directions and headed up to the third floor where Melinda’s room was. He stopped by the nurses’ station to inquire about her, but a screech of fury from her room answered the question of whether or not she was asleep.

The duty nurse glared up at him in exasperation.

“Horse tranquilizers might shut her up,” he commented drily.

“Or a ball-peen hammer,” the woman snapped back.

They broke into simultaneous smiles. Gabe murmured, “Could you tell her I stopped by to ask about her...after she went to sleep?”

“Gabe? Is that you?” Melinda called out from her room.

Drat.

“Busted,” the nurse whispered sympathetically.

“If there’s any word on Willa Merris, will you come rescue me?”

The nurse nodded conspiratorially. Steeling himself to endure one of Melinda’s patented tirades, he stepped into her room. But his heart was in another part of the building entirely.

Chapter 16

W
illa started as she opened her eyes and was surrounded by nothing but white. Had she
died?
“Where am I?” she asked experimentally.

A disembodied voice answered, “You’re in an MRI machine, Miss Merris. Please don’t move. We’re almost done.”

“I’m alive, then?”

“Very much so.”

That was good, at any rate. “How did I get here?”

“An orderly wheeled you down here on a gurney.”

“No. I mean to the hospital.”

“Mr. Dawson brought you in.”

So, she hadn’t imagined that dream of him cradling her with his body and climbing out of hell with her. Except it hadn’t been hell. It had been outside, though. She remembered feeling a breeze on her skin. And the acrid taste of limestone dust.

Something bad had happened.... She tried to remember, but only snatches came back to her. Strange laughter echoing around her. Someone pushing her. No, not her. She frowned and tried hard to remember. Her car. Someone pushed her car.

Abruptly, memory exploded of standing on her brake pedal with all her strength while her little car slid over the edge of a cliff on the way to Lover’s Point.

“Oh!” she exclaimed. She tried to sit up, but something restrained her.

“Please, ma’am. Don’t move.”

“Someone tried to kill me. I remember now!”

A pause. “Who?”

“I don’t know. A car. No. A van.”

“A van tried to kill you?” the voice asked doubtfully.

“Well, obviously not the van itself. Someone in a van. It hit me and then pushed me off the road.”

“I’ll notify the police, ma’am. But please lie still.”

She subsided, impatient for the stupid MRI to end. “Where’s Gabe?”

“Mr. Dawson?”

“Yes, yes,” she answered impatiently.

“He’s waiting for you. You can see him as soon as you’re done.”

And just like that, everything was all right. She was alive. Gabe was alive. He’d saved her like he always did, and he was nearby. Her knight in shining armor. Warm, soft, joyous feelings flooded her. This
so
had to be love. She loved him. Overwhelmed and overjoyed at the notion, she relaxed until a technician came to wheel her out of the MRI machine.

Her first words were, “Can I see him now? Can I see Gabe?”

“I’ll tell the doctor you’re asking for him.”

But she was wheeled into a room and hooked up to a bunch of machines, and still there was no sign of him.

A new doctor came in and announced, “Your MRI looks good. There don’t appear to be any serious internal injuries. I think we can safely say you’re going to make a full recovery.” He shined a bright flashlight into both of her eyes and added, “We’re going to keep you here for observation overnight, though, because you hit your head and were unconscious for an extended period of time. It’s just a precaution. Is there anyone we should notify?”

A deep voice said from the doorway, “Consider me notified, doctor.”

Her heart leaped, and she smiled at Gabe. Even through the bright spots dancing in front of her eyes from the doctor’s flashlight, Gabe was beautiful. His jaw had a long scratch on it, and he was moving carefully, but he was still her Gabe.

She held out her arms to him and he brushed past the doctor to gather her in his embrace. Tears of joy overflowed her eyes.

“Hey, no need to cry, baby. You’re going to be fine,” Gabe murmured into her hair.

“I’m not sad,” she whispered back. “I’m happy. To see you and to be alive. I knew you’d save me.”

His arms tightened around her. He spoke over her head. “Does she get a clean bill of health besides the knock on her noggin, doc?”

“Yes, sir.”

His arms tightened even more, but she didn’t care one bit that he was squeezing the stuffing out of her. For a while there, she’d been pretty sure she wasn’t getting off that mountain alive. The doctor slipped out of the room, for which she was entirely grateful. There was something she needed to tell Gabe, and she darned well didn’t want an audience when she did it.

She hesitated, nervous, and opted for a circuitous approach to the topic on her mind. “I thought I was done for up there.”

“God, Will. I’m so sorry I didn’t get to you sooner. I was no more than a mile away when I had to turn around and go back to town. If only I had known you were out there—” He buried his face in her hair and took a shaky breath.

Why did he have to return to town? She would normally have asked, but she didn’t want to get sidetracked. “I had a little while to think about my life in between bouts of unconsciousness.”

“Reach any conclusions?” he asked.

“Actually, yes. I realized how much I trust you. And depend on you. I think of you as my knight in shining armor.”

He laughed a little, sounded embarrassed. “Well, maybe I’m an old knight in dented and tarnished armor.” He added teasingly, “To heck with a horse. I charge to rescue in a Cadillac.”

“Nonetheless, you saved my life. I can never thank you enough.”

“Willa, if something had happened to you—” He didn’t finish the sentence. After a moment he said soberly, “Believe me, saving you was as much for my benefit as yours. If something bad had happened to you...” he tried again. Still no conclusion to that thought other than his arms crushing her until she squeaked for air.

“What I’m trying to say, Gabe, is that I think I lo—”

A commotion at the door stopped her on the verge of declaring her love for him. Gabe looked up sharply at the same time he leaned over her protectively. Two large, black-shirted men barged into the room in a rush. Her security guards. The poor guys looked nearly as frazzled and glad to see her alive as Gabe had.

And speaking of Gabe, he glared past her at the two men. “Yeah,” he said grimly, “you’re fired.”

“Gabe!” she exclaimed.

“Baby, you almost died tonight. You shouldn’t have been on that road alone and upset. You wouldn’t have gone over the edge, otherwise.”

“Uhh, actually, I would have,” she said in a small voice.

All three men stared at her. “What do you mean?” Gabe asked ominously.

“There was a van. It pushed me off the road. Well, it hit me first. Rear-ended me. And I hit my brakes. That’s when it pushed me over the edge.”

“As in it hit you a second time?” Gabe exclaimed.

“No. As in it drove up behind me, put its bumper against mine and the driver stood on the gas until he shoved me off the edge of the road.

The two security men all but jumped down her throat. “What did the van look like? Did you get a license plate? What did the driver look like?” At a terse nod from Gabe, their cell phones came out and both men talked fast into them.

When the guards came up for air, she said wryly, “I guess my guards are rehired, then?”

Gabe nodded reluctantly, but added to the men, “Just so we’re clear, gentlemen. One strike and you’re out. No more screwups.”

“Roger that, Mr. Dawson,” the taller of the two men agreed.

The security team went through their questions again, more slowly this time. She described the van as best she could, which wasn’t actually in much detail. She hadn’t seen the driver at all, nor had she spotted a license plate before it was plastered against her rear bumper.

As their questions wound down, she added slowly, “I have this weird memory of laughter. At least I think it was laughter.” She described the maniacal sound echoing around her as she lay in her mangled car.

Gabe and the security men exchanged significant looks. “Okay, Willa. It’s time to tell us about every enemy you have. Anyone who might have any reason to harm you,” Gabe said gently.

She frowned. “I don’t have any enemies.”

“That’s not exactly true,” Gabe responded soberly. “There’s James Ward, for one. He’s pretty pissed off at you.”

She winced. “I think his mother is madder than he is.”

Gabe nodded at the guard who was taking notes on a tablet computer. “Good point. Roseanne Ward goes on the list, too.”

The second guard asked encouragingly, “Who has given you a dirty look recently or said something nasty to you or hated something you’ve done?”

Willa sighed. “Just about everybody.”

“Like who?” the guy prompted.

Willa went through the past several days in her mind. “Jacquelyn Carver from the charity ball. Those anti-fracking protestors outside the ball. My dad’s right-hand man, Larry Shore.”

“When was he nasty to you?” Gabe blurted in surprise.

“He was furious that the governor appointed me to my father’s position and not him,” Willa replied.

Gabe nodded as she continued building her list. “That reporter, Paula Craddock, seems to have it in for me. Oh, and the guy from my dad’s political party who thought I was going to endorse him to replace my father in the senate race.” She added reluctantly, “And my mother. She’s convinced I’m trying to rob her blind.”

“Then there’s the six-hundred-pound gorilla in the corner you’re ignoring,” Gabe commented drily.

She blinked at him in surprise. “I don’t understand.”

“Have you forgotten about that secret committee your dad served on?”

“You think government agents might be trying to kill me because I found out about them?” she exclaimed.

“Possibly.”

She frowned. “But wouldn’t they have succeeded by now?”

“Honey, somebody pushed your car off a cliff tonight. I’d say they came damned close to succeeding, wouldn’t you?”

He was right.

One of the guards piped up. “What government agency, specifically, is trying to kill the senator?”

Willa cut off Gabe when he would have answered. “It’s classified. I’m not allowed to talk about it.”

“With all due respect, ma’am, every one of the men at Elite Security is ex-Special Forces. We all have high-level security clearances.” When she hesitated, the guard added, “We also have tons of back channel contacts in the government. Maybe we can run interference for you. Call off the dogs, as it were.”

She looked over at Gabe, and he nodded to her. Quickly, she filled in the men on what she’d seen on her father’s computer before it had all been erased and/or stolen. When she was finished, one of the guards let out a low whistle.

The second guard nodded. “That explains why you wouldn’t accept Secret Service protection. We were wondering about that. You didn’t know who to trust inside the government, did you? Are the break-ins at your mother’s home and your place related to this committee?”

She shrugged, but thought better of the movement as her body protested achily. Oh, man. She was going to be one sore puppy tomorrow. She answered, “I don’t see how the break-ins can’t be related. The timing is pretty suspicious, and both break-ins targeted my computers.”

The guards traded grim looks. “We’re going to be increasing your security detail, ma’am, and we’re going to be packing substantially more heat.”

“What does that mean?” she asked.

“We’ll be more heavily armed. Your security protocols are going to be quite a bit tighter from here on out. We apologize in advance for the inconvenience.”

She was flummoxed when Gabe rolled his eyes. Apparently, he had a good idea what the guy was talking about. Personally, she was clueless. But she liked the sound of it. If she’d learned nothing else tonight, it was that she
really
didn’t want to die. She’d just found Gabe, darn it! Speaking of which, she still hadn’t gotten around to telling him she loved him.

“Is there anything else, gentlemen?” she asked, being sure to let weariness creep into her voice. It was a cheap ploy, but she really wanted to be alone with Gabe.

“No, ma’am. We’ll have men posted outside your door around the clock and outside below your window. If you need anything from us or sense any threat whatsoever, give a shout out.”

“Okay.” She sighed. Sheesh. She was on the third floor, and they were still going to put a guy under her window?

The guards stepped outside, and she waited for the door to close behind them. “Thanks for not firing them,” she told Gabe. “It wasn’t their fault I ran out on them.”

“Next time, no matter how upset you are or how much you just want to be alone, wait for your security team. Okay?”

“I promise.” Jeez. She wasn’t a five-year-old. Now that she understood the magnitude of the threat to her life, she wasn’t about to ditch her guards again.

“As I was saying before the guys interrupted us,” she started, “I realized something important while I was waiting to die.”

Gabe winced, and moved swiftly to gather her in his arms again. She was distracted when his mouth touched hers tentatively. As soon as it became clear that she was not caused pain by it, he deepened the kiss swiftly. It felt so good to be with him like this, tasting him, merging a part of herself with him, melting into him.

She would never get enough of him. She’d wanted him for so long, and to have him now, like this, was nothing short of a miracle. He kissed her voraciously, as if he needed to reassure himself in this way that she was alive and essentially unharmed. She was glad to provide him with the proof.

Finally, he came up for air and she dragged in an unsteady breath.

“You were saying?” he murmured against her lips.

“Mmm. What? Oh. Yes. As I was saying—”

The door swung open behind Gabe, banging into the wall. “Mr. Daws—” A nurse started. “Oh! I’m sorry.”

Gabe sighed against her temple and half turned to face the nurse. “You wanted me?”

“Yes. Your wife is demanding to know where you are. The FBI wants to question her again and she refuses to talk to them until you’re there.”

“Melinda’s here?” Willa gasped. “They found her? Is she all right?”

Gabe went stiff against her. “Yes. She was rescued earlier this evening and she’s fine. Well, actually, she’s acting damned erratic. But physically, she’s okay.”

“Oh,” Willa said in a small voice. “I’m glad she’s all right. If she needs you, by all means, you should go to her.”

“But—” Gabe started.

A beautiful brunette woman stuck her head in through the door just then. “There you are, Mr. Dawson. If you could come with me, I need to speak with Dr. Grayson, and she’s being a wee bit uncooperative.”