Harlequin Superromance January 2014 - Bundle 1 of 2: Everywhere She Goes\A Promise for the Baby\That Summer at the Shore (23 page)

“He's shooting at me!” he yelled.

* * *

F
LASHER
GOING
ON
his roof, siren screaming, Colin was already driving faster than was safe. He was gaining on the patrol unit ahead.

“A sheriff's deputy is coming from the other direction, but he's probably ten, fifteen minutes out.”

Even through the phone, he heard the
pop
this time.

Noah swore viciously. “If he gets a tire or my radiator, he'll disappear.” Then, again,
“Shit!”

Colin hadn't been so scared since the night Nell had been snatched and he'd had to pursue in a helicopter, praying she'd survive until he got there. If he failed his sister—

Long experience let him shake off the panic.
Use your head. Do your job,
he ordered himself.

“Drop way back, stay in visual.”

“Not happening,” Noah said with sudden calm. “I've got steam coming out of the hood.”

Colin's turn to let loose an expletive. Their options had just shrunk to one.

“Can you force him off the road?”

“As soon as we come out of the trees.”

Encouraging a civilian to do something this dangerous went against every cop instinct Colin had. “When you see your chance, do it,” he said anyway, clear and cold.

* * *

T
HE
WAY
THEY
'
D
been swerving, Cait had long since taken her hands from the dashboard. One clutched the armrest, the other her seat belt. She hadn't known it was possible to be so terrified and live through it.

The next shot could go through the windshield and kill Noah. She pictured it, the punch through the glass, the blood blossoming, Noah slumping forward.

She could grab for the steering wheel. Or lunge across the man for the gun. Was she strong enough? What if they crashed?

She wanted the car to crash. But, God, they were going sixty miles an hour now. No, sixty-five. Her terrified gaze returned to the side mirror and she saw the black monster of an SUV closing fast again, filling the entire mirror. What was he
doing?

The man beside her snarled something and started to stick the gun back out the window. The Suburban bumped the rear, and the car lurched and swerved. Cait couldn't hold back a squeak. The man had to grab for the wheel with both hands.

The swearing was nonstop. After straightening their path, he shoved the handgun beneath his thigh before clamping that hand, too, back on the wheel. Another thump, enough to have the car rocking. She heard a high-pitched moan and realized it came from her throat.

Ahead the dry forestland ended abruptly, replaced by pasture enclosed in barbwire fencing. There wasn't much of a ditch. Could she get her leg over the console and somehow press on the brake? Or...or even grab the wheel and try to take them off the road?

Thump.
The car swerved toward the shoulder, and the wheels momentarily skidded on gravel.

Cait's thoughts were as disjointed and fleeting as a strobe light. One instant she had her mouth open and knew she was screaming. He was fighting to get the car back on the road. Oh, God, was that smoke coming out of Noah's Suburban?
Please, please, please.
She didn't even know what she was begging for.

Then, with a rush, the Suburban started to pass them.

The gun. If Noah forced them off the road, she had to get her hands on it. She would do anything—

It was alongside them. She turned her head and caught one wild glimpse of Noah's face, feral with determination, and then metal screamed and the car jolted so hard, her head snapped back.

The next instant, the car swerved sharply. They were momentarily airborne as they left the road.

* * *

N
OAH
BURNED
RUBBER
braking. It took him longer than he'd expected to regain enough control to drive off-road himself. The big SUV took a bone-jarring bounce, then grabbed for purchase. The Camry was enveloped in a swirling cloud of red dirt that began to look like a rooster tail. Yeah—son of a bitch, the guy was accelerating, still trying to escape.

Cait,
he thought in agony.

Noah pushed it harder. He had better traction. He caught up, started to pass, then swung the wheel hard, connecting with the driver's side. Please, God, let her have a seat belt on. The sedan went into a spin that brought it around to smash into his rear fender.

The Camry came to a shuddering stop.

Noah threw himself out. The dust filled the air and his lungs. At last he heard sirens.
Keep her alive until they get here.

The two in the front seat were grappling. Was she trying for the gun?

“Cait!” he roared, and yanked at the driver's-side door. Her captor hadn't been smart enough to lock it. Noah reached in and grabbed, hauling the piece of scum out. He couldn't do a thing to protect himself when the gun swung his way and barked.

The pain that struck was so immense, all he could do was try to hold on, to fall on the asshole and use his weight to give her time to run.

* * *

C
AIT
'
S
DOOR
OPENED
and she tumbled out, landing on her hands and knees.
He shot Noah. Oh, God, he shot Noah. He'll shoot me next.
She found she didn't care about herself. If Noah was dead, had died for her—

No, she didn't care what happened to her.

Something was screaming. Maybe it was her. She looked around for anything that could be a weapon, but they were in the middle of a sea of thin grass. Her hand landed on a dry cow patty. She crawled forward, around the front bumper, until she saw the two men.

He was pushing his way out from beneath Noah, who sprawled facedown, unmoving.
Dead. Oh, God, he's dead.
The man reached his knees and pushed himself to his feet. With a terrible look on his face as he stared down at Noah, he lifted the gun. From nowhere, Cait found the energy to explode into motion. At the last second he saw her coming and started to turn, but she was already midair, her foot leading. It connected with his arm and the gun spiraled away.

She was falling backward, with him rearing above her, hands extended like claws, his face contorted with rage. For the space of a few heartbeats, time slowed. She saw him that day, staring hard at the fence behind which she huddled. Now. Then.

She slammed to the ground.

“Put your hands up!
Do it!
” The voice seemed unreal.

The man threw himself toward the gun. Somehow Cait rolled over, thinking she could stop him, but she was too far away.

Even as he lifted it, guns fired—
bang, bang, bang
—and he fell back like a rag doll, the red blossoming just as she'd imagined it on Noah's broad chest.

With a whimper, Cait crawled to Noah's big body, lying so terrifyingly still.

* * *

“I
CAN
'
T
STAND
it.” Cait shot to her feet. “Why is it taking so long?”

Colin rose with her. The kindness on his face had her close to blubbering. “It hasn't been that long. I know you're scared, Cait. Just hold on.”

She was suddenly trembling, head to foot. Her teeth chattered. Her brother swore and stepped forward, engulfing her in an embrace. She leaned on him, eyes dry, trying to close her mind to what was happening somewhere past those huge double doors she could see across the hall from their small waiting room.

He had to be all right. He had to.

“I love him,” she whispered.

“Yeah.” Colin's voice was as gentle as his arms around her. “I kind of guessed that.”

“He knew what he was doing.”

“He knew.” Her rock-steady brother harrumphed a few times, and she knew he was nearly as shaken as she was. One last throat clearing. “I think it's safe to say he loves you, too.”

Cheek against Colin's strong chest, she breathed in the knowledge, the certain wryness in his voice, and steadied a little. Enough to lean back and smile crookedly at him.

“Have you gotten over despising him?”

The corner of his mouth lifted. “We've been coming to an understanding.”

Behind Cait, Nell chuckled. “Haven't you noticed that he trusted Noah to take care of you?”

She had. She'd also noticed how often the two men had worked in concert.

She half turned to include her sister-in-law. “He asked me to marry him.” She bit her lip. “Actually, he didn't ask. He told George Miller we were getting married. I thought he said it because that was part of the protect-Cait plan.”

Now Nell gave her a little hug. “From what I've heard about Noah Chandler, that's further than he'd go for any other woman in the world. He's not known for being softhearted.”

“He should be,” Cait heard herself say. “He didn't need to make Angel Butte better for himself. He's already successful. He was thinking about everyone else.”

Colin gave another harrumph that might have been skeptical but might not. Nell laughed again.

A lean, dark man filled the doorway to the hall. Alec Raynor, who Cait hadn't met until two hours ago. “Still no word?” he asked.

She shook her head.

She wouldn't have guessed he could be kind, either, but would have been wrong. His eyes rested on her. “Noah's tougher than any of us. He'll pull through.”

Her smile wobbled. “Thank you.”

He nodded and retreated. Either he was trying to give them privacy or was incapable of doing nothing but sitting, she couldn't decide. So far as she could tell, he'd spent most of the past two hours pacing the hospital's wide corridors. A few times, Colin had left Cait holding Nell's hand and walked with the police chief. She'd seen them pass, talking quietly. Once they came back with soft drinks for her and Nell.

The double doors opened, but for an orderly to push an elderly man in a wheelchair out.

Cait sank back down into the same chair, the one that gave her the best view of those doors. Once again, Nell took her hand, and Cait held on to it, a lifeline.

“What if—”

Nell's grip tightened. “Don't think it.”

She could barely squeeze the words out. “He looked really bad.”

Nell didn't say anything. Neither did Cait.

Please.

Colin rejoined them and took his seat on her other side. He laid his arm over her shoulders, his fingertips touching Nell's upper arm so that all three of them were linked.

Please.

A nurse came out through the doors, then returned a while later. Someone on a gurney was wheeled in, his face hidden by an oxygen mask. It had to be another half hour before a man in green scrubs pushed his way through, his surgical mask pulled down around his throat. His gaze went right to them.

Cait wasn't sure she could have stood if Colin hadn't hoisted her to her feet.

Or spoken.

Please, God, please.

He nodded. “Captain McAllister. I gather Mayor Chandler has no family here?”

“My sister, Cait, here is the closest. They're engaged,” Colin said.

“Ah.” He smiled. “He's in recovery and doing well. He's lost his spleen and we had to do a fair amount of repair work in there, but I see no reason not to anticipate a complete recovery.”

He went on to detail some of that “repair work.” There was something about a “bleed” and a cracked rib. Cait couldn't take it in. A complete recovery. That's what he'd said, wasn't it?

Oh, thank God. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Her knees were suddenly so weak, she dropped back into the chair. To her shock, a sob ripped through her. She buried her face in her hands and began to weep helplessly.

Nell sat down and held her while Colin and the doctor talked quietly for another minute. Somehow Cait knew that Alec Raynor had stepped in, and probably retreated in alarm, but Colin went after him.

Cait kept crying. Cried like she hadn't in years. No, ever.

He had been willing to die for her but somehow survived.

She cried harder.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

N
OAH
WOKE
FEELING
like a heavy beam had dropped across his belly. And it had to have glanced off his head on its way down, as foggy as he was. Opening leaden eyelids took enormous effort. He tried to move his lips to form a word.

“You're in recovery after surgery,” a woman said from right above him. “You were shot and the surgeon had to remove a bullet.”

Shot.
He tried to consider that, but his mind drifted.

He came to again.
Shot.
This time he got out a ragged, desperate “Cait.”

“What is it? Do you need something?”

“Cait.” It took him a moment to work up enough spit to allow his tongue to function. His lips felt cracked. “Want Cait.”

“Oh. I'm afraid we can't let family into recovery...”

“...all right?” he managed to say.

“Your fiancée? Is that who you're asking about?”

He finally pried his eyes open to glare fiercely at the plump, kindly woman. “Fiancée.”

“I know you must have questions—”

“Alive?”

“Oh!” This time she sounded startled. “Let me find out more about the incident.”

He was too scared to doze this time. A second nurse appeared and persuaded him to suck on some ice chips. His tension grew as he waited.

The first nurse reappeared in his range of vision. She was smiling. “Do you mean Cait McAllister?”

“Yes.”

“I'm told she's fine. A few bumps and bruises. The man who kidnapped her and shot you was killed by police.”

He was able to grapple with the news. Longtime Deputy District Attorney Ronald Floyd had been desperate enough to kill and kill again. Pulling him out of the car, Noah had recognized him.

Time passed. They insisted he couldn't see Cait until they moved him upstairs to a room. The mist gradually cleared from Noah's head, allowing him to think more clearly. Shouldn't he hurt more than he did? He did know vaguely that these days they used painkillers internally before closing the patient. He had confidence he'd hurt eventually.

Sure as hell his Suburban would be totaled. He wondered whether he could persuade the insurance adjustor to consider what happened an accident. That almost amused him.
Yeah, probably not. Ah, well.
Buying a new vehicle was a small price to pay if Cait really had survived unscathed.

He had nodded off again when they finally announced that they were ready to move him to a room. Thankfully, that involved no more than adjusting IV lines and rolling the bed he was in out through a pair of doors and down a hall.

“Noah?”

Was that Cait? His head turned as he searched for her, and suddenly there she was, right next to the bed. Reaching over the rails for his hand. Her eyes were damp and puffy, and shock infused her expression. He guessed that meant he didn't look very good.

“Cait.” He was able to grip her hand and almost smile at how chilly it was.

The orderly was saying something cheerful, and Noah suddenly realized he was surrounded. Colin and his wife were there, too, and, of all people, Alec Raynor hovered in the background. He caught a brief glimpse of his PA, Ruth Lang, unless he was seeing things.

After scanning the small crowd, his gaze locked back on Cait's distraught face.

He wanted to tell her he loved her, but his last public announcement hadn't gone so well.

Most of the people jammed themselves into the elevator that carried him up. Once the orderly, joined by a nurse, began to maneuver the bed into a patient room, though, they asked everyone to wait outside until they had him “settled.” He hoped that didn't involve shifting him to another bed. That
would
hurt.

The only person he really wanted to see was Cait. He frowned. No, maybe Colin, too. He'd like to find out what happened after he had checked out. Doctor, too. Nobody had yet told him what damage that bullet had done. He could move his feet—he demonstrated to himself, watching them rotate beneath the thin white blanket—so he knew he wasn't paralyzed. But there were other ugly possibilities.

He got to stay in the same bed, but it was an annoying length of time before the nurse seemed satisfied that he
was
settled. She took his blood pressure and temperature, shifted the IV to a different pole, made notes on a whiteboard below the wall-hung television. The one positive was that he seemed to be alone in the room. There wasn't even an empty bed on the other side of the room, just an empty space.

“We don't want you tiring yourself out,” the nurse said cheerily. “But I'll let your family in briefly.”

To his relief, only Cait and her brother appeared. Colin eased the door shut, cutting off most sound from the hall and giving them some privacy. Cait came straight to the bed and latched on to Noah's hand again, as if resuming a painfully severed connection.

Yes, he thought, that's what it felt like. He never wanted to let her go again.

He looked past her to Colin. “What happened?”

McAllister gave a succinct summation. A pair of sheriff's deputies had reached the scene first, just in time to see Cait kick the weapon out of Ronald Floyd's hand. They had ordered him to put his hands up, and he'd thrown himself at the gun instead. When he'd brought it around toward them, they had both fired. Colin had arrived only moments later.

“I already had an aide car en route, which was a good thing. You bled like the Red Sea.”

Maybe that was why he felt so tired.

“It's not a joke!” Cait snapped.

Her brother looked at her in surprise. “Didn't say it was.”

Noah managed to smile at her. “Had a lot of blood in me.”

Her lips wobbled, and her eyes brimmed with tears.

“Hey,” he said huskily. “Alive.”

“Yes.” Her teeth sank into her lower lip. “I was so scared.”

“Me, too.”

“Why did you come back?” she asked. “I mean, how did you know I'd been kidnapped?”

“Was an idiot. Didn't like you feeling bad.” His eyelids were beginning to feel heavy again. Words weren't coming readily. “Not your fault. None of it.”

She bent over the blasted rail and laid her cheek against his. He felt the dampness of her tears and turned his head, trying to find her mouth. She did the same, and they kissed, a quick, fumbling excuse for a kiss, but she was there, alive, holding his hand.

When she straightened, he asked, “You know what they did to me?” With the hand that had an IV in it, he gestured toward his torso.

Colin was the one to step forward and explain. His spleen was history, Noah learned. Otherwise, there'd been a nick here, a tear there. The surgery had dragged on because he'd continued to bleed even after they thought they'd gotten everything. They'd finally located the mystery bleed, put in a few more stitches. And, oh, yeah, removed a bullet.

“Bet it matches the one that killed Hegland,” Noah mumbled, and Colin did chuckle, if very, very drily.

“That's a sucker bet.”

He was smiling, too, drinking in the sight of Cait's puffy, splotchy, tear-streaked face, so damn beautiful, when he fell asleep.

* * *

C
AIT
REFUSED
TO
leave. It took a while to persuade Colin that he and Nell really could go home and leave her at the hospital. She pointed out that Noah would not be enthusiastic about having all three of them standing around like a flock of vultures staring at him.

That made Colin laugh and hug her. “Okay. You're right. But you know he'd be happier if you came with us and got a good night's sleep instead of trying to catch a few z's in a not very comfortable chair.”

Her chest constricted. “I'm having trouble believing... I thought he was dead.”

Nell smiled at Cait. “You know I was shot, right?”

Cait nodded.

“Colin didn't leave the hospital for at least two days.” She tilted her head against his shoulder in a brief, loving contact. “So don't let him tell you he doesn't understand.”

After another of his deep, slow chuckles, he hugged Cait. “All right. You win. I'll be back in the morning.”

She pulled the chair as close to the bed as she could get it and kept her hand over Noah's even when it was slack in sleep. Every time she dozed, she was jolted awake by a rush of adrenaline. The flash she saw was the blood and Noah toppling, the fury and fear on his face fading into stunned acceptance.

She had believed on such a visceral level that he was dead, she was having trouble convincing herself he wasn't.

A couple of times, he came awake hurting. A nurse slipped in quietly, took his temperature, reminded him how to administer his own pain relief and slipped out, leaving them alone.

The first time he appeared truly awake was morning. Pale light leaked through the blinds. Activity was increasing out in the hall. Cait heard a far-off rumble and clank she thought might be the arrival of breakfast trays on the tall carts.

Blinking sleep out of her own eyes, she realized he was watching her.

“Good morning,” he murmured.

“Good morning.” She straightened in the chair and rolled her shoulders to loosen kinks. “I'd kiss you, but I probably have yucky breath.”

He laughed, winced, then said, “Don't make me do that. It hurts.”

“How do you feel?”

“Crappy,” he admitted. “Not surprising considering someone was digging around in me yesterday.”

“After you were
shot.
”

“Yeah, not one of those things I ever expected to happen.”

“I thought he'd killed you.” She felt raw. “I thought...” Her voice failed.

“Hey.” He reached for her hand, which must have slipped from his when she fell into a deeper sleep. “I'm here. Full recovery, remember?”

“Yes.” She made herself breathe.
Full recovery. Nobody really
needs
a spleen.

“I came back to tell you that business about you ‘letting' Ralston hurt you is bull.”

“It happened.”

“It happened because that's how you were taught to respond.” He kept talking, saying things that echoed what she'd begun to realize herself about her parents and the way she'd tried so hard to go unnoticed. Somehow the explanation was more convincing coming from him. She'd been afraid she was trying to justify the unjustifiable.

His very blue eyes held hers. “It's hard to unlearn childhood lessons. I've been a loner because I was so sure...” Finally he hesitated.

“That no one could love you,” Cait finished softly.

His eyes searched hers. “Yeah,” he said at last, sounding gruff. “I guess that's it.”

She studied him, a face that by any standards should be homely and yet...wasn't. Cheekbones that were too broad and blunt, nose that was too large, furrowed forehead, jaw subtly off center—and none of it mattered compared to the intelligence in those blue eyes or the sweetness or humor or rakishness of his smiles.

“You were wrong,” she whispered.

A nerve in his cheek pulsed. He stared at her for the longest time. “I love you,” he said then in a gravelly voice. “Maybe you won't want to hear it, but you need to know I wasn't being chivalrous.” His mouth twitched into a half smile that didn't reach his eyes. “That was your word, wasn't it? You walked into my office that first day and I felt the ground shake. I told myself I shouldn't hire you. If I'd wanted to keep my life the way it was, I shouldn't have.”

Hope and joy filled Cait like the water in a reservoir, rising, rising, until it had to spill out somehow.

But she had to ask. “Are you sorry?”

“Never,” he said roughly. “Never.”

“I fell in love with you so fast.” She laughed a little. “And I was off men, remember?”

“Will you come and sit here?” he asked, patting the bed beside him.

She was trembling when she did, bending over to kiss him again. “Who cares if we have morning breath?”

He laughed, then groaned. “Not me.” And he finally let go of her hand so he could wrap his around her nape and draw her down again. “Not me.”

* * *

T
HREE
DAYS
LATER
, Noah plodded down the hospital corridor clutching his IV pole, his determination to regain his strength so he could get the hell out of there the only thing that kept him going.

Cait had gone by his house and brought him a robe his mother had sent for Christmas one year that he'd never worn and a pair of slippers that he did wear. They wouldn't let him wear his own pajama bottoms, but at least with the robe his ass wasn't bared when he got out of bed.

The positive? Cait was beside him, wearing royal blue jeans that fit her like a second skin and a bright yellow scoop-neck T-shirt as cheerful as that suit of hers that had inspired idiotic flights of fancy in him.

When he got grumpy, she laughed at him.

“I'm like a donkey harnessed to turn one of those wooden wheels to grind corn or something,” he complained. “Around and around and around.”

“Hopeless,” she teased, making her voice slow and dreary. “Knowing you'll spend the rest of your life walking the hospital halls.”

“With bare, hairy legs.”

“Pooh.” She smiled at him. “You have sexy legs, and you know it.”

His mood elevated, and he grinned at her. “Now, if
your
legs were bare, it would be another story.”

Cait made a face at him. “They keep it too cold in here. Why do they, when patients are in shock or don't feel good or, um, aren't wearing much but a hospital gown?” She crossed her arms and rubbed them, as if chilled.

“Maybe because the average person's thermostat is set higher than yours?” Noah suggested.

She scowled at that but finally conceded, “Maybe.”