The Lady in Red & Dangerous Deception

by Linda Turner

  Chancing a quick look around the oak, he spied Louis standing with his back to Sabrina, his face twisted with fury and madness as he studied the surrounding brush off to Blake’s right. For the moment, at least, he was distracted and didn’t even realize that Sabrina was slowly backing away from him. If Blake could keep the old man’s attention away from her long enough, she just might have a chance to slip into the trees and hide.

  Glancing around, he found the fallen branch he’d stepped on and picked it up. Barely two feet long and not quite as thick as his wrist, it was half-rotten but would still make a nice loud crash when it hit the ground. Silently praying that Sabrina was on her toes and ready for anything, he hefted it by one end and tossed it far to the right of him. As it came down through the trees, it sounded, at least for a few seconds, like the cavalry was breaking through the underbrush.

  As jumpy as a first-time bank robber, Louis whirled, his eyes wild as he scanned the bushes for a threat he couldn’t see. “Go away!” he cried, and fired wildly into the trees.

  Blake didn’t wait to see more. “Run, Sabrina!” he yelled, and dove into the thick stand of oaks off to his left in an effort to draw the old man’s anger away from Sabrina to himself.

  From the corner of his eye, Blake saw Sabrina take off at a dead run, but she’d barely reached the edge of the clearing when Vanderbilt realized that he was losing her. “No!” His scream echoing eerily through the trees, he spun on his heel to find her racing for the concealment of the bushes. Snarling, he lifted his pistol and fired just as she threw herself into the trees.

  “You bastard!” Rage roaring in Blake’s ears, fury blinding him to everything but the need to kill the old man with his own hands, he threw the tire iron and hit him right on his wrist. The gun went flying, and before he could do anything but cry out in pain, Blake was on him.

  “You miserable piece of trash! If you hurt her, I’ll make you wish you’d never been born.”

  Out of his head, his only thought to get the gun, Louis was stronger—and wilier—than he looked. Kicking and scratching and ranting like a wild man, he slipped out of Blake’s hold and scrambled for the pistol, which had fallen under a bush at the edge of the clearing. His breathing ragged, sweat dripping down into his eyes, Blake launched himself at him, grabbing him just as the old man’s hand closed around the barrel of the gun.

  “Drop it!” he growled, jamming one hand under Louis’s chin while the other locked around his wrist. “Drop it or I swear I’ll put my fist through your face.”

  Past reason, Louis only grunted, his lips drawn back in a snarl as he fought to hang on to the gun. Swearing, Blake rolled over the ground with him and finally came up on top as sirens wailed in the distance. With a vicious oath, he slammed the old man’s hand down on a rock. Just that quickly, the fight was over. The pistol fell from his grasp, and in the next instant, Blake had it and was towering over him.

  “Just give me an excuse to pull the trigger,” he said coldly, pointing the gun right at his head. “Please…just one. That’s all I need.”

  From behind him, there was a crashing through the underbrush, but Blake never took his eyes from Louis, who didn’t even try to get up but lay in the dirt like a beaten old man. “Don’t do it, Blake,” Sam Kelly said as he and four uniformed officers pushed their way into the clearing. “He’s not worth it. Let us take over from here.”

  “Only if you promise to damn well keep him away from Sabrina,” he said coldly. “He’s scared her for the last time.”

  “He won’t be scaring her or any other woman for the next thirty or forty years by the time we get through with him,” Sam assured him confidently as he stepped to his side and took the gun while two of the uniformed officers jerked Vanderbilt to his feet and slapped handcuffs on him. Glancing around while the old man was read his rights, he frowned. “Where’s Sabrina?”

  Blake started toward the thick stand of mountain laurels where he’d seen Sabrina dive for cover. “Hiding over here in the bushes unless she ran to get help. I distracted Vanderbilt long enough for her to get away, and that’s the last I’ve seen of her.”

  Half expecting her to come bursting out of the undergrowth and throw herself into his arms any second, he pushed his way through the bushes. “Sabrina? Honey? It’s okay, you can come out now,” he called, but his only answer was the whisper of the wind through the leaves. Uneasiness curled into his stomach like a damp fog. “Sabrina?”

  He heard it then, a soft moan that could have been his imagination…except that Kelly heard it, too. He saw the other man stiffen, then they were both fighting through the bushes, searching. Ten minutes later, Blake found her. Sitting on the ground, her back propped up against a tree, she was as pale as death and covered in her own blood. She’d been shot.

  Later, Blake didn’t remember Kelly calling for an ambulance. All he saw was Sabrina’s bloodless face, the total lack of color in her cheeks, the pain that darkened her eyes. She stirred at his hoarse cry, a weak smile pushing up one corner of her mouth as he whipped off his shirt and dropped down beside her to press the cloth to the ugly exit wound in her left shoulder. “I-I’m all r-right,” she whispered.

  “Shut up.” Rage tearing at him, his fingers shaking with fear, all he could think of was that the son of a bitch had shot her in the back. In the back, goddammit! And so close to her heart that if he’d hit her two inches lower, he would have killed her instantly. And she hadn’t said a word. While he’d been fighting the bastard for the gun, she’d been quietly bleeding to death. Dammit to hell, hadn’t anyone thought to call for an ambulance?

  “Blake, the ambulance is here,” Kelly said grimly, touching him on the shoulder. “You’ve got to let the paramedics take over from here.”

  Another voice, a woman’s, said firmly, “You’ve done all you can for her, sir. Let us do our jobs and she’s got a good chance of pulling through this.”

  He didn’t want to step back, to trust her care to anyone but himself, but suddenly, there were hands to take over for him and keep pressure on the wound, and he was in the way. He stumbled back, his eyes burning with emotion as he watched the paramedics work over her with sure, skilled hands. He couldn’t lose her, he thought fiercely. But God, how could she lose so much blood and still live?

  “Come on,” Sam told him as Sabrina was loaded onto a stretcher and quickly transported to the waiting ambulance. “I’ll give you a ride to the hospital. You’re in no shape to drive.”

  He would have preferred to ride in the ambulance, but there was no room, and time was at a premium. Nodding, he said tersely, “Let’s go.”

  With sirens blaring and lights flashing, they went through every light with the ambulance. His face haggard, his gaze locked on the window in the back door of the ambulance, where he could see the paramedics working fiercely over Sabrina, Blake never heard Sam speak to him or try to assure him that Sabrina was in good hands. Numb, fear gripping his heart and squeezing painfully, he prayed like he had never prayed in his life.

  They reached the hospital in record time, but it seemed to take forever. Then Sabrina was whisked away from him, upstairs to surgery, and all he could do was wait. It wasn’t something he was particularly good at. Kelly had to leave and get back to the station, but he promised to return when he could. Pacing restlessly, unable even to think about striking up a conversation with the three other occupants of the waiting area, he watched every tick of the clock and never felt so alone in his life. What was taking so long?

  “Blake? Are you doing okay, son? I got here as soon as I heard.”

  Glancing up at the familiar sound of his grandfather’s voice, he blinked as if coming out of a daze. “Pop! What are you doing here?”

  “Detective Kelly called me,” he said gruffly. “I figured you needed me.”

  He had, and he hadn’t even known it. Emotion clogging his throat, he hugged the old man tight. “I can’t lose her, Pop. I love her.”

  “Well, of course you do,” his grandfather mur
mured affectionately, returning his hug. “You just now figuring that out?”

  Blake gave a choked chuckle and blinked back the sting of unexpected tears as he drew back. “Yeah, I guess I am. I don’t even know how it happened. I certainly wasn’t looking to get involved with anyone so soon, especially after Trina.”

  With a click of his tongue and wave of his bony hand, the old man dismissed his ex-girlfriend as easily as if she’d been nothing more than a piece of fluff. “I never met the woman, but I could have told you she wasn’t the gal for you. Not after you went with her for four years without even giving her a ring or anything. A man doesn’t need that kind of time to decide if he’s found the right woman—not if he really cares about her. Why, with your grandmother, I knew in the first week. For the next fifty-three years I never looked at another woman.”

  “Those were different times, Pop.”

  “Hogwash,” he snorted. “Love was love, and it hasn’t changed. Your grandmother didn’t just fall into my lap, you know. She had plans and was all set to go to some fancy college in New York when we met. And let me tell you, it took some pretty fast talking on my part to convince her that she didn’t want to go anywhere without me. But I knew as soon as I saw her that she was what I wanted when I hadn’t even known I was looking. Anyone with eyes can see you feel the same way about Sabrina. When it’s right, you just know.”

  Blake couldn’t argue with that. He’d come to San Antonio with a bruised heart and ego, determined not to look twice at anything in a skirt. So much for his fine resolve, he thought ruefully. One look at Sabrina, and he’d gone down for the count like a boxer with a glass jaw. No one, not even Trina, had ever dominated his thoughts the way she had, distracting him at the damndest times.

  And then when he’d seen her in Louis’s clutches and realized that he could lose her before he ever had a chance to tell her what she meant to him, he’d wanted to kill Vanderbilt with his bare hands. The strength of his rage still stunned him. Because of his job, he saw violence and its aftermath every day of the week; he would have sworn he just wasn’t capable of that kind of fury. He’d been wrong.

  God, he loved her. So much that it scared him. He wanted to spend the rest of his life making her laugh, loving her, going to bed beside her and waking up with her in his arms. But even if she was able to pull through the surgery and make it, he might not get the chance.

  Sinking into a nearby chair, he said, “Try telling Sabrina that. Even if I can get her to admit that she loves me, she’s got this thing about marriage. Her mother and grandmother have walked down the aisle more times than Elizabeth Taylor, and she’s convinced she just doesn’t have what it takes to make a marriage work.”

  “So change her mind,” his grandfather said simply. “If she loves you, she trusts you. And that’s what marriage is all about, son. Love and trust. Not even the strongest attraction can work without that.”

  He made it sound so easy. But as an hour passed, then another, and people in the waiting room came and went and he and his grandfather still waited, he couldn’t worry about the future when he didn’t even know if Sabrina was going to make it through the rest of the day. What was taking so long? Unable to just sit there, he prowled around the Spartan room, watching minutes turn to hours, and had to fight the need to throw something.

  Finally, three hours after Sabrina was rushed upstairs to surgery, her doctor, still in his green scrubs, stepped into the doorway of the waiting room. “Mr. Nickels?” he said as Blake turned toward him expectantly. “I’m Dr. Richardson. I understand you’re Sabrina Jones’s fiancé?”

  Blake nodded, promising himself that the small lie would be the truth before too much longer. “How is she? What took so long? Is she conscious? When can I see her?”

  He threw questions at the doctor like darts, not giving him time to answer one before he thought of another. Laughing, Richardson held up a hand in protest. “Hold it! Let me tell you what I know, then you can ask any questions you want.” His twinkling eyes turning serious, he said, “Sabrina’s a lucky young woman, though I doubt she’ll feel like one for the next couple of days. That bullet came awfully close to her heart.”

  Blake paled. “But she’s going to make it?”

  “Oh, yes. She lost a lot of blood, and she’s going to have to take it easy for a while, but she’s young and strong. Barring any unexpected complications, I don’t see any reason why she shouldn’t live to see her great-grandchildren.”

  Deep inside, the knot that had tied itself around his heart loosened. She was going to be okay. He felt his grandfather’s hand on his shoulder and laughed shakily. “Did you hear that, Pop? She’s going to make it.”

  “I never doubted it,” the old man said, squeezing his shoulder reassuringly. “She may not be big as a minute, but she’s tough. I knew it the second I laid eyes on her.”

  “When can I see her?” Blake asked the doctor. “I won’t stay long,” he assured him when the other man hesitated. “I just need to see her, touch her. Two minutes, tops. I promise.”

  “She’s still in recovery. She won’t even know you’re there.”

  “That’s okay. I will. C’mon, doctor. If she won’t know I’m there, what harm can it do?”

  “All right,” he said reluctantly. “But only one minute, and not a second over. Ms. Jones might be tough, but a gunshot wound isn’t something you bounce back from the next day. Once you’ve seen for yourself that she’s really still breathing, I want you out of here for the rest of the day. Got it?”

  Blake nodded. “One minute, no longer. Scout’s honor.”

  He would have agreed to just about anything short of murder to get within touching distance of her, but once he was in the recovery room, standing at Sabrina’s bedside, he didn’t know how he was ever going to leave her. God, she was pale! And so still. The sheet covering her barely moved as she breathed. His throat tight, he reached out and closed his fingers around her limp ones. She never moved.

  “Hang in there, sweetheart,” he whispered roughly. “You hear me? You’re going to be all right.”

  “You have to leave now, Mr. Nickels,” the recovery-room nurse said quietly from behind him. “Dr. Richardson said one minute.”

  “I know. I know. I’m going.”

  But he didn’t. Not for another thirty seconds. Not until he took one last long look at her, committing every inch of her to memory. It was all he would have of her for the next fifteen or twenty hours. God, how was he going to stand it?

  Turning away, he growled, “I’ll be back,” then walked out the door. It was the hardest thing he’d ever done.

  Sabrina shifted slightly in her hospital bed, only to suck in a sharp breath as her shoulder seemed to burn. The doctor had given her something for the pain, but it only made it bearable as long as she was relatively still. Whenever she inadvertently moved the wrong way, she paid for it.

  Sweat breaking out on her brow, she squeezed her eyes shut and waited for the throbbing to ease, silently cursing her own weakness. She didn’t have time to be laid up, she told herself. Not now. Not when the biggest story of the decade was wrapping up and she had the inside scoop. She had to get out of here and over to the Daily Record. Nearly twenty-four hours had already passed since Louis had deliberately shot her in the back, and if she didn’t get her version of the story out soon, it was going to be old news and worthless.

  Fighting pain and exhaustion, she’d read both papers from front to back page, cursing what she was missing. After Louis’s arrest, the police had searched his house, where a diary was found hidden under the mattress of his bed. In it, he’d described how he’d met his victims at the bookstore and grocery store, even the flower shop and a singles’ club, then proceeded to make friends with each of them. And when they didn’t fall in love with him, he killed them.

  With her out of commission, Fitz had assigned someone to follow up the story—a cub who had done a decent enough job and who would, with time, develop his own style and ask all the righ
t questions. But for now, he’d missed more than a few pertinent details, which made Sabrina itch to get out of bed and reclaim her rightful spot in the pecking order. He didn’t do the job like she did and wasn’t even in the same ballpark, let alone the same league, with Blake.

  Her heart constricting just at the thought of him, she felt stupid tears well in her eyes and quickly blinked them away. She would not, she told herself fiercely, cry over the man. Just because he was too busy writing up the rest of the news about Louis to come and see her didn’t mean she was going to get all watery-eyed. He’d get around to visiting her eventually. And when he did, she’d tell him what she thought of a man who took advantage of a woman with a bullet in her shoulder just to win a bet.

  It wasn’t as if she cared about him, she thought as a hurt ten times more powerful than the one in her shoulder lodged in her heart. Okay, so maybe she had let him get to her just a bit. She wasn’t made of stone. The man was damn attractive and the kind of lover that most women would sell their soul for. If her heart wanted more from him than a few nights, a few weeks, in his bed, then no one would ever know that but her.

  Staring blindly out the window as the day began to fade, she swallowed the lump in her throat. She wanted to go home. She knew it was too soon—she couldn’t possibly take care of herself yet—but she needed some time to herself. She had a private room, but people still came and went at their own discretion, often without bothering to knock. If she could get home, at least she could cry in peace without anyone walking in on her.

  As if on cue, the door opened behind her, but she didn’t spare so much as a glance for her visitor. Meals were delivered like clockwork, and she’d heard the familiar squeaky wheels of the food cart as it was pushed down the hall ten minutes ago.

  “You can just put it on the table,” she said quietly. “I’m not very hungry. Maybe I’ll eat it later.”

  “You sure?” a teasing male voice asked from the doorway. “I went all the way downtown to get you a George’s special, and even had the nurse heat it up in the microwave in the staff break room. It’d be a shame to waste it.”