Dead Heat (21 page)

Cole turned and saw her wiggling her bloodied toes. Paige saw the second he comprehended that she was injured. His face went from red to white as he ran over to her.

“What in the hell is this!”

“Um, feet?”

“You didn’t have shoes? This whole time you were injured and you didn’t tell me? Dammit Paige, I told you to wait at the truck, but did you listen? Oh no, Paige Davies could never listen to anyone!”

Cole raised his eyes from her damaged feet and holstered his gun. “I love you more than anything else in this world... your stupidity and all.” He gave her a wink and she let out a squeak as he scooped her up in his arms.

“Ooh, that feels so much better. But I refuse to be the bimbo.” Paige rested the gun on Cole’s shoulder and kept it aimed at the man.

“Fine. Refuse to be the bimbo all the way until I take you to the hospital. But then you kind of have to put away the gun.” Cole kissed her wrinkled brow.

“Hospital! I don’t need a hospital. Just some tweezers and peroxide.” Cole raised one eyebrow at her and glanced down at her feet. Paige wanted to stick out her tongue. But she looked down at her feet and the blood slowly dripping to the ground. Thorns stuck out everywhere and deep cuts ran along the tops and bottoms of her heel. Toenails were ripped off and bleeding. Well, maybe she might need to go to the hospital, but she’d be damned if she’d admit it!

“Jesus, Parker. Put my sister down. This is not the time to be making out with her. There is a bleeding, unconscious man on the ground and she’s holding a gun.” Pierce stood next to his father, both holding their hunting rifles and staring at them with cold hard looks.

From where they stood, they could only see her back and her feet were out of view. As if thinking the same thing, Cole turned so they could see.

“I am sure you can appreciate why I am holding your sister and why I refuse to put her down.” Cole looked down at her feet and Paige watched as the other two men fixed their gaze on her mangled feet.

“Oh, sweetpea, what happened?” Her father asked as he rushed over to her.

“I was down at the rocks when I heard someone coming. I thought it was Cole, so I didn’t bother to hide. But, it was him,” she gestured to the man still unconscious on the ground. “Then he fired at me and I dove into the water and then ran downstream until I was able to claw my way out and up onto a deer trail. I ran barefoot down the deer path to the main trail and then across the field to my truck while the man fired on Cole. I made it to my truck and got Sally out. I got a shot in the right shoulder while Cole shot him in the left.”

“And where were you while she was by herself at the creek? I thought the whole purpose of you staying with Paige at the shop and her apartment was to guard her. Now, the one time she needs you, you aren’t here until it was almost too late!” Pierce’s face was starting to get red and it was easy to forget he was only twenty two years old.

“Pierce, it was my fault. I got upset about something and stormed out before he could stop me. Cole raced after me and tried to stop me, but I didn’t listen. I am just glad he knew where to find me.”

Paige tried not to snicker at Cole’s face. His lips formed a tight line and he looked like he was trying to figure out how and when something went wrong. Poor guy, it would always be his fault.

“He got me a gift.” Paige handed off her gun to her brother and crossed her arms over her chest as she stared Cole down.

“I don’t get it, sir. I got her a gift and she got madder than a hornet’s nest at me.” Cole pleaded his case to her father. “It is a top of the line vacuum cleaner that is specially made to pick up dog hair. It even comes with a five year warranty.” Cole’s plead got cut off by her father’s bark of laughter.

“Oh boy, you were fixin’ to get into it, weren’t you? You never buy a woman an appliance or anything to use for keeping house. I reckon you won’t be doing that again, now will you?”

“It would have been helpful to know that before I gave her the vacuum,” Cole mumbled.

“Don’t feel bad son. I gave Marcy a new iron for Christmas when we were first married. My head still aches when rain is comin’ on.”

“Daddy! Mom would never hit you with an iron!” Paige laughed and temporarily forgot about the pain in her feet.

“If you could have easily picked up the vacuum and swung it at Cole’s head, you would have.” Her father paused to let her think for a second. When she tried to fight the smile tugging on her mouth, he just nodded his head. “You’re mother has quite the arm.”

Paige wondered how Cole could hold her for so long. Police, EMTs, and Ahmed swarmed the field. The abrasive noise, lights, and fumes transformed the quiet field into a nightmare. All she wanted was quiet. She wanted to take a deep breath and let the country air heal her. Cole kept her wrapped up in his arms as he talked to everyone who responded, issuing orders on how he wanted the situation handled.

Ahmed didn’t bother answering. He gave a barely perceivable nod of acknowledgment. “I want you to watch over him. When he wakes up, scare the crap out of him. Hopefully that will get him to talk to me.”

“I can handle that. I’ll ride over in the ambulance with him and get to him as soon as he wakes up. However, we’ll want our own words with him. What’s the second favor?”

“Both our cars are shot up and I need to get Paige to the hospital to have her feet cleaned up. Can I use your car?” Ahmed reached into his pocket, pulled out his keys and tossed them to Cole.

“Which car is yours?” Paige sarcastically asked as she glanced around the field. The shiny black Mercedes looked alien sitting in the middle of the field, surrounded by mud splattered SUVs and pickup trucks.

“Jake, Pierce, I am going to take her to the hospital to get cleaned up. Can you look in our cars and get whatever we might need out of them before they get towed into evidence?”

“Sure.” Her father gave her a kiss on the cheek and smiled down at her. “Take care of yourself. We’ll be over tomorrow to check on you. You know your mother, she’ll be baking for the rest of the night when I tell her what happened. Get some rest. She’ll be force a to reckon with tomorrow.”

“Thanks, Daddy. I love you.”

“Love you too, sweetpea.” Paige started to tear up as she watched her father and brother retrieve her purse from her car. Her gun had already been turned over to the police as evidence.

“It’s okay, sweetheart. Everything is okay now.” Cole placed a lingering kiss on her forehead and walked to Ahmed’s car.

Paige watched the University of Kentucky’s campus come into view as they drove up South Limestone. Her head rested against the soft leather as she watched an empty Commonwealth Stadium fly by. In just a couple of weeks, the stadium would be packed for the first football game of the season. But now it sat patiently waiting for game day.

She knew how it felt. Cole was right, everything was okay now. There was no one trying to kill her, which meant no reason for Cole to stick around. What was going to happen now that they would be forced into the real world? A world with Cole living in Lexington and her in Keeneston. A world that had Cole placing himself in danger every day. How would it all work?

As Paige watched him stride into the hospital she knew they weren’t just talking about her feet.

Chapter Sixteen

Paige felt her temper start to rise. She was independent and hated to be treated like she was a child. She was behind the curtain in one of the emergency bays. The nurse had handed her a set of scrubs to change into. Her wet clothes were turning cold in the air conditioning and she was freezing, not counting filthy. The nurse had taken a pair of scissors to the bottoms of the scrubs to turn them into shorts so they could get to all the cuts and scrapes on her legs to clean and stitch them.

The problem was the mother hen in the room with her. He was smothering her. She went to peel off her wet t-shirt and he jumped up and tried to help her. In actuality, the only thing he did was get in her way.

She stopped herself from snapping at him because she knew he was so concerned for her. But she secretly hoped the nurse would kick him out when she got back.

“Cole, just let me do this,” she begged.

“No, you’re hurt.” It appeared Cole was determined.

Paige rolled her eyes as her arms where raised and Cole had the t-shirt pulled over her head so she couldn’t see anything. She almost cheered when she heard his cell phone ring. He cursed as he clearly couldn’t answer it while trying to take off her shirt.

“I got this. Just answer your phone. It could be important.” Paige yanked her arms away from Cole and peeled off her wet shirt in one yank. Before Cole could get off the phone she stripped off her shorts and slipped on the dry scrubs.

“That was Mo. He’s upstairs in the physical therapy room with Dani and a lot of guards. After you get your feet fixed up, I will take you up there and leave you with Dani. Mo wanted to talk to me about the assassin. I will go check on him while you and Dani have a chance to see each other.”

Paige gritted her teeth and tried not show how pissed off she really was, but it was hard. She being pushed around in one of those God awful blue plastic wheelchairs by someone who was treating Paige like a two year old. Wasn’t it her that evaded and then shot the assassin?

Now Cole was treating her as if she couldn’t sit at the big boys’ table. Paige had asked if she could be included in his talks with Mo, but he said no with this little smile on his face that she wished she could wipe off. Cole had told her that Mo didn’t want to worry Dani. These boys were clueless. She stopped grinding her teeth and knew she just needed to bide her time. She and Dani would find out what was going on even if the boys thought they didn’t need to know.

Cole turned down a hall and right into a wall of bodyguards. Paige looked up and smiled as Cole told them who they were. One no-neck man knocked on a door. When it opened, he whispered something to the occupant. The door closed for a second and then reopened as Mo appeared.

“Paige, I am so glad you are okay. Please let me know if you need anything. Dani is excited she’s getting to see you.” With a nod of his head, Cole pushed her to the door and let a guard open it.

“Don’t worry, I can wheel myself in. Where are you boys going to be?” Paige tried for casual and hoped they didn’t catch on to her snooping.

“We’ll be right out here for the next couple of minutes. Then we’re heading down to the ICU. If you need us, just let one of the guards know and they’ll come get us,” Cole told her as he let go of her wheelchair.

She looked back and saw both of them standing right behind her watching as she made her way into the room. She moved slowly and hoped they really were so impatient to talk to each other they wouldn’t see what she was doing, or what she wasn’t going to do. She smiled at them and slowly moved through the door.

“I got it from here, thank you,” she told Mr. No-Neck. He stepped out of her way and she put a hand on the door as she wheeled through.

“Paige!” Dani jumped up from a mat on the floor and rushed over. “I was wondering who was coming in the door! I told Mo I had to see you before I believed you were okay.”

Perfect. Dani was talking loud enough for everyone in the hall to hear.

“You’re looking good, Dani. Can you a help a girl out with the door?” She gave her a wink and a smile. Dani’s smile grew as she picked up on the plan instantly. Dani held open the door and gave the men in the hall a quick wave. Paige rolled through the door and Dani closed the door so the latch rested against the frame. The result was a small crack that made it easy to eavesdrop. With a grin to each other, Dani helped Paige out of her wheelchair and up to the crack in the door.

“Do we know who this man is yet?” Mo asked Cole.

“Not yet. The prints we ran came back with several identities, just like the description. Apparently our man covers his tracks well and has multiple identities good enough to fool authorities.” She heard Cole sigh and knew that he was running his hand through his hair like he always did when he was frustrated.

“Why was he in the system?”

“It was all traffic. Nothing more than speeding tickets and a couple parking tickets.”

“What are your plans? You had asked for Ahmed, but I don’t know what role you want him to play.” Even though he was friends with Cole, Mo maintained a regal attitude. But Paige guessed it matched the cop face Cole was surely wearing.

“I have Ahmed in the room with him now. I am hoping for good cop, bad cop. Hopefully with Ahmed standing there, he’ll take option B by telling me everything for a deal.”