Serendipity (Inevitable) (55 page)

Julia’s heart was racing so hard she feared she’d faint, but wasted no time in tearing madly out of the condo.

Nathan was tired and irritable when he finally wrapped up surveying the site of a potential new office building. The site was in a community a few miles south of San Francisco, one he wasn’t too familiar with, so he’d had to wait on the arrival of the city planner and civil engineer, and they had both been late. The builder who’d been selected for the project had had dozens of questions, and what should have been a relatively quick survey had taken far too long.

He was back in San Francisco now, and he debated whether he had time to return to the office before picking Julia up from her client’s. It occurred to him that he didn’t even know the address, and hoped that she’d sent him the promised text. While stopped at a red light, he quickly found the text and immediately felt his blood turn to ice.

Cameron. It was her address. Somehow she’d managed to lure Julia to her home, obviously under false pretenses, because there was no possible way Julia would have gone there willingly.

“Shit!” he cursed, and immediately started figuring out the absolute fastest route to Cameron’s condo. He couldn’t imagine that his ex-fiancée would actually harm Julia, until he recalled the hard slap Cameron had given her once, hard enough to leave a bruise and a cut.

The light turned green and he surged ahead, grateful he’d driven the BMW today for it was much faster and easier to maneuver than his SUV. He hoped fervently he didn’t cross paths with a police car, because he was intent on breaking every speeding record in the book to get to Cameron’s the fastest possible way. He ignored the honks from pissed-off drivers as he cut them off, veered into lanes without signaling, and tailgated unmercifully. All the while he was half-praying, half reassuring himself that nothing was wrong, that Julia was fine, that Cameron was probably doing nothing more than insulting her or screaming like the shrew she was. God, if that crazy bitch even dared to lift a finger against Julia, he’d wring her skinny neck until it snapped!

His heart was pounding like crazy, and he felt sick to his stomach as he drew ever closer to Cameron’s condo. A glance at the clock revealed it to be two forty-five, only fifteen minutes past the time Julia was supposed to have arrived. Nathan thanked the powers that be that had made him check Julia’s text before heading for the office instead.

His leg was shaking with fear as he came within three blocks of his destination. Parking was an absolute nightmare in this area no matter the time of day, and he only hoped he could find a space nearby.

He had circled the block twice already, cursing vividly when there was no parking to be found. He was going around for the third time when his blood chilled at the horrifying sight that greeted his eyes – a bloodied, disheveled, hysterical Julia stumbling out the front door of the condo building. Immediately, he double parked the car and raced over to the sidewalk to catch her as she collapsed tearfully in his arms.

“Jesus, baby, what the hell happened? Julia – you’re bleeding. Let me call 911. Jesus.”

She was sobbing, clutching his arm as they sunk to the sidewalk together. “Oh, God, Nathan. It’s Cameron – she has a gun – and she tried to kill me – I think it’s just a graze, but –“

“Shh.” He kept an arm wrapped around her while he searched for his phone, somehow managing to punch in 9-1-1 with badly shaking fingers. He ignored the gathering crowd of passers-by, most of whom just gawked in alarm before hurrying on their way, but a few who hovered in the background, and one man who hunkered down next to them. He introduced himself briefly as Charlie, and identified himself as an off-duty nurse. Charlie began checking Julia’s arm as Nathan answered the 911 operator’s questions rather brusquely, and ignored the woman’s repeated admonishments to calm down. After barking out the required information, he was assured by the operator that both an ambulance and a police unit would arrive very soon.

Charlie, meanwhile, was doing his best to calm Julia down, and desperately searching for something to staunch the flow of blood, which seemed to Nathan to be substantial.

“Do you have a first aid kit in your car?” he asked Nathan, when he learned the BMW was his. “Or a towel, anything like that? I’m almost sure this is just a deep graze, but it’s bleeding like crazy and I’m sure it must hurt her like hell.

Nathan was reluctant to leave Julia even for a second, especially when he saw how pale she was and how clammy her skin felt. But he dashed to his car, not giving a flying fuck if he got three tickets for double-parking, and found a towel inside the gym bag he always kept stashed in the trunk.

As Charlie began to wrap the towel around Julia’s arm to staunch the flow of blood, Nathan heard the telltale sound of a siren nearby and felt a mild relief. He clutched Julia’s hand tightly, and kept kissing her forehead, brushing her damp curls behind her ear.

“It’ll be okay, baby. You’re going to be just fine,” he assured her even as her eyes shut and her head lolled back limply.

“Shit,” muttered Charlie. “She’s passed out. I sure hope that’s the ambulance and not the cops I hear approaching. Here, let’s rest her head on your lap.

Nathan felt a hot tear run down his cheek as he tenderly cradled Julia’s head in his lap. “Is she going to be okay? Christ, that’s a helluva lot of blood.”

Charlie nodded as he tightened the towel around her arm. “Yep, probably why she passed out. She might need a transfusion but I’m fairly sure she’ll be okay. Ah, here’s the ambulance.”

Nathan bent and kissed Julia gently on the lips. “Hang on baby. Everything’s going to be just fine.”

Cameron staggered to her feet, her vision impaired by the sluggish trickle of blood that ran from her temple into her eye. She was more than a little woozy but still alert enough to find the gun she’d dropped earlier and picked it up. A quick glance around revealed that Julia had escaped, leaving the front door wide open behind her. Enraged, Cameron grabbed her keys from the entryway table and ran down the three flights of stairs. That bitch couldn’t have gotten far, especially in those ridiculous fuck-me stilettos, and Cameron was certain she could overtake her. Julia wouldn’t be so lucky to escape with just a flesh wound this time. She’d shoot the bitch in the brain, the heart, the gut, to make sure she was well and truly dead.

But when she stumbled unsteadily into the lobby, she froze in her tracks as she saw the scene unfolding just outside the front door of the building. A small crowd had gathered on the sidewalk, including two paramedics who were lifting Julia onto a gurney.

And Nathan was there, too, somehow. How in the world had he arrived so quickly? How had Julia managed to contact him since it appeared she was passed out cold? Cameron watched, her heart shattering into a thousand pieces, as Nathan tenderly bent over Julia, clutching her hand and kissing her forehead. He was crying, shaken, and looked absolutely devastated. And it was in that moment Cameron realized how completely in love with Julia he really was, and how she could never, ever hope to get him back. Her legs wobbled, and she fought the urge to sink to the floor and weep.

And then another siren sounded, and Cameron’s despair turned to fear at the arrival of the police cruiser. Aware all of a sudden that she was clutching a gun, she turned and ran down the flight of stairs that led to the small underground parking garage.

Her hands were shaking as she unlocked the door to her Mercedes sedan, and then tore out of the garage as fast as she could. Her heart was racing as panic surged through her. With Julia still alive, there was no way now that anyone would believe the fabricated tale of Cameron mistaking her for an intruder. God, she’d be arrested and charged with who knew what and all of her father’s money and connections wouldn’t save her from jail. She would be destroyed socially, her family would cut her off, she’d lose her business – the list went on.

Tears poured down her cheeks, mingling with the blood and sweat already streaming from her forehead, and her vision grew blurry. In the distance she could hear sirens, and she panicked, assuming the police were after her. She drove faster, recklessly, swerving into lanes of traffic, at one point driving over a curb, and had no clear idea of where she was headed or what she would do when she got there.

Cameron was so terrified, so panic-stricken, and so bewildered that she didn’t notice she’d turned down a dead-end street, still traveling at a reckless speed. The last thing she thought before the darkness claimed her was that this was a strange place for a concrete wall to be.

“The doctor said you can leave tomorrow, baby.”

Julia gave Nathan a weak smile and squeezed his hand. She was more than a little dopey from the pains meds they’d shot her up with, and still shocky from everything that had happened earlier today. Since she had apparently fainted from shock and blood loss, she’d had to rely on Nathan’s recounting of what had happened after she’d managed to escape a crazed Cameron.

The bullet had indeed only been a graze, but it had cut a deep groove and she’d lost a lot of blood. She’d received a transfusion, plus antibiotics and a tetanus shot, and been bandaged up. Though in no danger, the doctor wanted to keep her overnight for observation. Nathan had already called her parents and Lauren, and they were understandably upset but also grateful that she was okay. Julia had managed a small smile through her woozy state when she’d heard that Lauren was ready to drive up tonight, round up three or four friends, and go on the hunt for Cameron until they found her and broke every bone in her skinny body.

“Travis should be here any minute,” Nathan told her, brushing her tangled hair off her shoulders. He’d been hovering over her, fretting and pacing, as though he was afraid to let her out of his sight for even a second. Even through her drug-addled state, she could see how agitated he was, how his suit and shirt were hopelessly rumpled and stained with her blood. His hair was a mess, sticking up haphazardly and in total disarray.

“I hope he’s bringing you dinner,” she said sleepily. “It’s after seven and I know you haven’t had a thing to eat or drink. You also look kind of scary with all those bloodstains.”

He brought her hand to his lips. “Imagine then how terrified I was when I saw you falling to the sidewalk with all that blood pouring from your arm. Jesus, if I’d lost you, Julia, if she’d managed to really hurt you – I’d want to die, too.”

“Shhh.” She tenderly ran her fingers over his lips. “I’m okay. Just sleepy. And I’m sure this arm will hurt like hell when the meds wear off. At least it’s not my drawing hand so I won’t miss any work.”

“Your boss might have something to say about that.”

Julia and Nathan looked up as Travis strode into the room, carrying a takeout bag in one hand and a fuzzy stuffed pink unicorn in the other. He handed the bag to Nathan, proclaiming it dinner, and then tucked the stuffed toy next to Julia’s pillow as he bent to kiss her cheek.

“Even bloodied and bandaged and drugged up, with that appalling hospital gown on, you still manage to look gorgeous,” he told her with a smile.

She managed a small chuckle as she cuddled the unicorn. “Yes, well, forgive me if I don’t believe you at the moment.”