His Wedding Date (The Second Chance Love Series, Book 2) (30 page)

He dialed the hospital as he drove. He finally got the nursing supervisor on Marion's floor. She said she'd seen Shelly just a few minutes ago, but lost track of her. Then, through the phone, he heard a commotion, a woman yelling as she ran down the hallway.

Gun.
He heard that word clearly. A man with a gun down the hallway.

Shit.

He knew it, dammit.

Brian wondered if Grant had the guts or the sheer stupidity to use it this time. He wondered whose head it was pointed at and whether the safety was on or off.

He pushed his foot down hard on the accelerator, dialing 911 and promising himself he wasn't going to lose Shelly now.

* * *

Grant grew more agitated with the sound of the sirens. "This is all I needed," he told Shelly, holding up the envelope. "Just this. And I've got it now."

"Well, maybe you should go, Grant."

"Yeah." He wiped the sweat from his brow with the sleeve of his shirt. "Yeah, I should."

"Grant, the police are coming. They're going to be here any minute. You need to go now."

He paced from the window to the door and back again. "I know. I'm just not sure where to go," he said. "It all got so complicated, you know?"

Shelly nodded. He seemed incredibly like a child at that moment.

"I didn't mean for any of this to happen," he said again.

"I know." She eased toward the door again as he walked to the window. She wasn't that far from the door.

The sirens were roaring now, right outside the window.

"It's not too late," she said. "They're in front. You could go out the side entrance, but you have to hurry, Grant."

"Yeah, but what am I going to do with you?" he asked, staring at her. "You know what's in here. You know what I did." He pointed the gun right at her. "You're going to have to come with me, Shelly."

"I won't tell anyone," she said. "I promise."

Grant laughed, and the sound sent chills up her spine. "You won't tell?"

"That's right," she said. "I... I like you, Grant. I don't want you to end up in jail."

"I can't go to jail," he said. "It was a mistake. That's all. And I can't go to jail. You can't let them send me to jail. My family would have a fit if I went to jail."

"Okay. I won't let them do that to you."

But he didn't believe her.

"You'll have to come with me," he said again.

Grabbing her by the arm, he pulled her in front of him as a shield, anchoring her there with an arm around her chest, the gun to her head.

"Let's go."

The hallway in front of the door was deserted. But as they turned to go down the hallway, someone stepped in front of them.

Shelly wasn't sure who it was at first. She was almost blinded by the light from a big, wide window at the end of the hall.

Grant stiffened behind her. The unknown man didn't move. Grant halted.

The man stood in the middle of the hallway, his empty hands hanging down to his sides. No weapon, no nothing.

Oh, God, it was Brian.

"You're not going anywhere with her," he told Grant.

Then he just stood there in the middle of the hallway, as if sheer force of will was a match for a man with a gun. It was the most foolish thing she'd ever seen Brian do.

For a minute, Shelly was sure he was up to something, some trick or something. But the seconds ticked by, and the sound of running feet—the police no doubt—kept coming closer, and Brian just stood there.

Slowly, she realized he not only didn't have a weapon, but he didn't have any sort of plan, either. What did the man think he was going to do? Get himself killed, too?

Oh, my God!

"Get out of my way, man," Grant said nervously. He managed to keep the gun fairly steady now and pointed at her.

Brian shook his head and stood his ground.

He'd lost his mind. Both of them had. She was the only sane person in this hallway.

"Get out of here." She mouthed the words to Brian.

Brian shook his head.

"Grant," she said, wondering if the man with the gun could be any easier to talk some sense into. "You have to go now—"

Suddenly, it was too late. She heard the clatter of running feet and tense, shouted orders to take cover, because they'd spotted the man with the gun.

One of the officers called to Grant to let her go and throw down his gun unless he wanted to get hurt.

Shelly could feel the fear in the man who held her fiercely. It was almost as strong as her own panic. It seemed to swirl in the air around them, holding them in a paralyzing grip.

"Turn around, Grant," she told him, feeling the indecision in him.

"I don't know," he said. "I... I don't know what to do."

"Turn around," she repeated softly.

Brian was no more than a few feet in front of her, but she couldn't let herself look at him.

Why didn't he get out of the way?

She couldn't help but think of that morning and the things he'd told her he wanted. Just a little time for the two of them, he'd said. Surely they deserved that and more. The one night, as wonderful as it had been, hadn't been nearly enough.

"Drop the gun, Mr. Edwards," one of the policemen said. "And let the woman go. This is your last chance."

"Do it, Grant. Do what the man says."

"I never wanted to hurt you," he said to Shelly, even as he cocked the gun. She watched as the gun that had been pointing more toward the ceiling than at her came down slowly toward... Her? Or Grant himself?

"Get away from me," he yelled over his shoulder, then turned to her. "I'm sorry," he said, shifting beside her, bringing the gun closer—

A harsh cracking sound reverberated down the hallway. She thought at first Grant had pulled the trigger and wondered why she hadn't felt anything. Surely the gun was close enough to blow off the side of her face. But it didn't hurt, not in her face, at least. Grant's arm tightened around her in a punishing grip, and he moaned.

In the next instant, she felt something slam into her from the front and knock her down as a second shot rang out.

Shelly hit hard against the floor, the breath knocked out of her, the solid weight of a man falling heavily on top of her.

A third shot rang out.

Another body hit the floor. She heard it, but couldn't tell what had happened from her spot, pressed to the floor under a man's body.

The police started yelling.

"Are we clear?"

"Clear."

"We're clear."

The weight of the man on top of her shifted. She looked across the floor to her right. There was Grant, flat on the floor, too, not moving, blood on the floor beside him.

A policeman picked up Grant's gun.

It was finally over.

* * *

Brian waited until the police ran past him and surrounded Grant before he rolled off Shelly and turned her over, running his eyes up and down her body. He wasn't sure he'd gotten to her in time, and he wasn't sure how good a shot the officer with the rifle was. If he'd seen a drop of blood on her, he would have lost it, right then and there.

Thankfully there was none.

"You all right?" he asked when he could trust himself to speak.

She nodded, breathing hard, her lower lip trembling. Hell, her whole body was trembling.

Brian was afraid to touch her, even to see she was real and safe, sitting on the floor in front of him. He brushed off the officer's questions, not willing to let anyone pull his attention away from her, not willing to let anyone get between them.

Finally he reached out a hand to trace the only sign he could find that she'd been hurt—the reddened spot on her left cheekbone. "You're going to have another bruise, sweetheart."

And he'd put this one on her himself when he'd knocked her to the floor.

She nodded, then looked out of the corner of her eye to the commotion to the left of them.

Brian saw blood pooling on the floor next to Grant. The police were there, along with a couple of the nurses working over him.

So easily, it could have been Shelly. He tried not to think it, but he couldn't help himself. A few inches to the right, a slightly unsteady hand, an officer who'd hesitated a moment too long—any one of those things and it could have been her on the floor in a pool of blood, rather than Grant Edwards.

"Oh, God," Shelly said, turning away from the sight of the Grant sprawled on the floor.

And then whatever had held Brian back, whatever had made him hesitate to touch her, gave way. He hauled her into his arms, and he didn't let go for a long, long time.

Chapter 19

The next thirty hours were insane. Police questions, EPA officials' questions, city building code enforcers' questions, press questions, employees' questions.

Grant Edwards was going to make it. Shelly had been in the way of any kill shot the police had, so when he'd raised the gun–to take his own life, Shelly believed—the police sniper had shot Grant high on his right shoulder.

Once he got out of the hospital, if he didn't end up in a psych hospital first, he was going to court and then to jail.

Meanwhile, Brian would see what he could do about saving the business Charlie had spent his life building, for Marion and for the employees who earned their livings there. But it was not going to be easy.

Brian had hardly had time to breathe, much less figure out how to save the business, especially with government and professional regulators coming down on the company at the same time.

And he didn't want to deal with any of that, anyway. He wanted to make Shelly tell him what was bothering her.

They'd had a ridiculous fight at the hospital once he'd convinced himself she was safe and sound, and for a while he thought she was mad about that.

He'd handled the situation badly.

How many times had he admitted to something like that in the past two weeks? He shook his head in disgust.

He'd actually yelled at her back there at the hospital. He'd demanded to know why the hell she hadn't gotten on that plane to Tallahassee like she'd promised. She'd yelled right back that stepping in between the door and Grant Edwards with his gun had been the stupidest thing Brian had ever done, and then she'd left.

Obviously he hadn't been thinking as clearly as he should have.

Hell
, who was he kidding? He hadn't been thinking straight for a while now, and it was all her fault. He probably should have tried to explain that, but the woman had damned near scared him to death. So instead, he'd lost his temper with her again and made things even worse.

He glanced at the clock on the wall as he walked through the nearly deserted office. He saw her standing in the hallway, staring at one of the site plans tacked up onto the wall.

He was furious she'd spent the night at her own apartment, when he'd wanted her back in his bed at his house. He was still scared to death about how close he'd come to losing her to a bullet.

She'd been so soft and yielding in his arms for a few precious moments after Grant had been shot, but that woman had been nowhere to be found yesterday afternoon or today. She'd been downright cool toward him, as if she hadn't turned to fire in his arms two nights ago.

He wondered if she regretted that now, and he thought he might know why. She might believe, mistakenly, that it hadn't meant nearly as much to him as it did to her. It was time to set the woman straight.

He was on his way to do that when Maureen looked up from her desk and called out to him.

"Brian? Phone for you. Well, they asked for Charlie, but—"

"Sure. I'll take it."

"And if it's all right, I think I'll be going now."

"Go ahead," he said, heading back to his office to pick up the call.

He was only half paying attention to the call—an engineering firm in San Francisco checking a reference for a job hunter—when he realized the employment candidate was Shelly.