by Melody Anne
“The guard was away from the monitor when it happened. I rewound the feed,” Jackson growled.
“I have her purse. Get everyone out to the parking lot now!” Cam hung up and dumped out the contents of the purse, nearly sobbing with relief that her phone wasn’t there. If it wasn’t in there, then there was a chance it was on her.
Bryson arrived in less than a minute. “Is her phone on her?”
“I hope so,” Cam said.
Bryson picked up his phone and dialed. “I need a trace.” There was a pause, then Bryson read out the number twice, and waited.
The rest of the group surrounded Bryson in silence, waiting for him to finish his call.
“We’ve got a location,” he said after hanging up, “and a chopper is on its way here. We can only take three total.”
“I’m coming,” Cam told them.
“I didn’t doubt it. Axel and I are coming with you.”
The chopper landed and the three men climbed aboard. The next fifteen minutes were the longest ride of Camden’s life. They had to land a far enough distance away from the location of the cell phone not to alert the assailant to their presence, but that meant they had to run a few miles across the terrain.
“She’d better be here,” Cam said as they made their way toward their target.
“She will be,” Axel said, his eyes focused and deadly.
That’s when they heard Grace cry out, and all three of them picked up their pace. They came around the corner and what Cam saw made his blood run cold. Jimmy Wells was holding a gun and pointing it directly at Grace.
“I’m going to kill him,” Cam snarled.
“Quiet. Don’t let him know we’re here. She’s smart, Cam. She’s holding it together. Let’s get into position,” Bryson said, and he and Axel moved in opposite directions, while it took everything inside Cam not to run forward. But he had to trust his friends who did this for a living.
“Hold still!” Jimmy yelled as Grace twisted on the ground.
“Don’t do this, Jimmy. If you miss and kill me, you won’t see one red cent,” she yelled at him, finally getting to her feet.
Jimmy stalked forward, but she sidestepped him.
The crazed look in the man’s eyes scared the hell out of Cam. He was going to shoot her. Cam couldn’t wait any longer. He leapt from the bushes. “Jimmy!”
Moving much more quickly than Cam liked, Jimmy turned and faced him, then reached out and grabbed Grace, wrapping an arm around her and hiding behind her like the pathetic excuse for a man that he was.
“Don’t come one step closer, or I swear I’ll shoot her in the head and then shoot you next,” Jimmy yelled.
“Let her go, Jimmy, and you just might live through this. We have you surrounded. Sure, you might get off a lucky shot before you’re taken down, but I guarantee I’ll survive it and then I’ll make sure you get sent to the worst prison in this state for the rest of your miserable life.”
“I’ll kill you before you can ever do that!” Jimmy yelled.
“Then do it, Jimmy. Point the gun at me and fire,” Cam taunted him. He needed to get that gun away from Grace’s head. He had no doubt Axel and Bryson were in position, but there was no way they’d take a shot if there was any danger of hitting Grace.
“Go, Cam. Now. I don’t want you getting hurt!”
“Shut up, Grace!” Jimmy yelled, his hand shaking, his finger still on the trigger.
“It’s easy to take down a girl, Jimmy, real easy. Let’s see how you do against a man,” Cam shouted at him.
“I can take you anytime, you worthless officeworking piece of crap. I’m the one who’s always had to think on my feet. I didn’t have a daddy to pay for me to be a lawyer,” Jimmy said.
“You’re talking a whole lot, Jimmy, but I don’t see you coming after me,” Cam replied, and moved closer.
“If you take one step closer, I swear I’m going to shoot her. I don’t have anything to lose.”
“Then I’ll rip you apart limb by limb.”
Cam watched the shift in Jimmy’s eyes, watched the fury, and he finally got what he wanted. Jimmy pulled the gun away from Grace’s head and he aimed it directly at Cam . . .
Three shots were fired.
Almost in slow motion, Grace watched Cam’s body fly backward and blood start to spread out on his shirt. At the same time, Jimmy’s body jerked behind her and she felt a splatter of moisture cover the side of her face.
He dropped behind her, and she ran forward as Cam fell to his knees. Footsteps signaled that people were running toward them, but she didn’t pay any attention. All she cared about was getting to Cam.
She sank down in front of him and tried to reach out, tried to hold him, but her hands were still tied behind her back. A cry of frustration tore through her, and she didn’t even recognize the sound.
Then she felt someone tugging on her hands, and she struggled against the person, fury spurring her on. She was going to rip Jimmy apart herself.
But suddenly Bryson was there before her, laying Cam back and putting pressure on the wound in his stomach. The ringing in her ears lessened as she finally realized someone was speaking.
“Stop fighting me, Grace. I almost have these ties undone.”
She turned to find Axel behind her. She couldn’t speak, couldn’t thank him, couldn’t even move as she focused on Cam. His eyes had rolled back in his head.
“Hang on, buddy, we’re going to get you to the hospital,” Bryson said as Axel freed Grace’s hands and she was finally able to reach forward.
“Get here now!” she heard Axel say, and within minutes she heard the blades of a helicopter as it descended onto the field, right next to them.
“Jimmy is dead. Send the cops here. We need to get Cam and Grace to the hospital now!” Bryson yelled at the pilot, who ran out to assist them.
Bryson grabbed Cam, lifted him up gently, and placed him in the chopper, and then Grace felt herself being hauled through the air as Axel picked her up. She found herself sitting next to Cam, begging him to be okay.
Two gurneys were waiting when they landed on the hospital helipad. Grace was placed on one gurney, and she could do nothing when Cam was rushed away from her on the other.
She screamed, “I need to be with him! Let me off this. I’m fine. I need to be with him!” But no one was listening.
Suddenly, she became sleepy and had to fight to keep her eyes open, as something was dragging her down. “No. Please don’t drug me, please,” she sobbed. But it was too late.
Maybe minutes or hours passed. Grace didn’t know. But she woke up crying Cam’s name.
“It’s okay, Grace. Everything is okay.”
Trying to focus, Grace turned her head and found Sage beside her, and her best friend’s eyes were red and swollen, her expression solemn.
“Cam? Where’s Cam? Please tell me he’s okay, Sage.”
“He’s fine, Grace. He woke up an hour ago and demanded to see you right away. The doctor gave him a sedative, but I’m afraid that if we don’t get you in there, all hell will break loose,” she said with a wobbly smile.
“Then take me to him.”
Grace was still weak from the sedative, so Sage helped her into a wheelchair and began pushing her.
“The bullet hit Cam in the abdomen,” Sage told her, “but it missed all vital organs. He’s going to make a full recovery, but a sore one, and I have a feeling he’s going to be a bear to be around while he’s on bed rest.”
The two of them approached a room that was almost rattling.
“I said to get her in here now or I will rip every one of these tubes out of me!”
“I guess he’s okay,” Grace said, a tiny smile flitting across her lips.
“Yep. That’s pretty much what the entire hospital has been hearing for the past hour,” Sage said.
And then she heard nothing else as she entered the doorway and her eyes met Cam’s. He was flushed, his eyes sparking, and he was the most beautiful sight
she’d ever seen in her life.
Sage wheeled her to the bed and she didn’t even feel the tears rolling down her cheeks.
“You really scared me today, Camden Whitman.”
He took her hand in his strong grasp, and his expression changed from anger to love in a heartbeat.
“That’s my line,” he told her, making a whole new set of tears fall.
“I’ve decided I’m not ever going to let you go again, Cam. I love you so much. When I thought I might lose you today, when I saw that blood . . .” She shuddered when she thought about it. And then she couldn’t speak past the quiet sobs strangling her throat.
“You’re taking my lines again, Grace,” Cam said, lifting his hand to her cheek and wiping away her tears. “I thought for a brief moment that I might lose you forever, and I can’t . . . no! I won’t live in a world without you in it. Please, Grace, please, never again put me through the agony of not being with you. You complete me. You make me a better man. Through good and bad, through thick and thin, I want to be with you forever.”
The room was silent. Cam’s visitors sitting there did not even dare to breathe for fear they’d be noticed and kicked out of the room. And then they’d miss this stirring scene.
“I love you so much, Cam. Yes, I want to be with you always. Can you forgive me for the mistakes I’ve made?”
His eyes rounded as he looked at her in shock. “We’ve both made decisions in life that have shaped us, taught us, and made us stronger. They aren’t mistakes. They’re all a part of who we are today. There’s nothing to forgive, Grace. You’re my reason for waking up each day, my reason to smile. I love you and I want to marry you and begin our family and our futures as one.”
Carefully, Grace rose from the wheelchair and climbed in beside Cam, careful not to hit any of his IVs or put any pressure on his stomach. Settling her head in the crook of his arm, she had never felt so much peace and happiness.
“How soon can you get me to the judge?”
“Dad!” Cam said, a huge smile lighting up his face.
“As much as I want this wedding to happen, we aren’t doing it from a hospital bed,” Martin said with a laugh, his color already beginning to improve as he sat there in his wheelchair with Eileen right by his side.
“I guess I can give it a day or two,” Grace said.
“Oh, you’re going to give it more than that. We have so much planning to do,” Alyssa said, beaming from her place on Jackson’s lap.
“Our family is almost complete,” Martin said with a huge grin directed at his son Michael.
Suddenly, all eyes turned on him. When he realized what was going on, he shot up from his chair. “Don’t look at me like that. I’m not even close to being ready to get married,” he said, backing away. “Hell, I’m not even thirty yet!”
“The harder they fight, the quicker they fall,” Martin said.
Michael made a quick exit from the room, and Grace beamed at her future husband. “Hmm, us girls will have to see who we can set Michael up with.”
“You go ahead and do anything you want.”
Grace leaned forward and got lost in Cam’s kiss. Her life was only just beginning.
EPILOGUE
Michael Whitman ran his knuckles against his eyes as he tried to wipe the sleep from them. What had woken him? Then he heard pounding on his front door and he sat up in bed and flicked on his lamp, the soft light still too much after pitch blackness.
He hadn’t gotten enough sleep lately, and it appeared as if tonight wasn’t going to be the night he caught up. Dammit!
Opening his bedside drawer, he pulled his Colt .45 out before sliding on a pair of jeans and securing the gun in the waistband. Then he made his way to the front of his house. Before opening the door, he stopped and listened.
What he heard made his blood run cold. There was no way that could be what he thought it was. He waited a moment longer, but the sound didn’t disappear.
So, pulling the gun from his pants, he undid the locks. “I have a gun, so if you’re planning anything funny, I will shoot first and then ask questions,” he warned.
Then he pushed open the door and quickly scanned the area. No one was out there. Well, it appeared for a moment as if no one was out there. That was until he looked down.
The color drained from his face, and he took a step back as the gun dropped to his side. His hands shaking, he set the gun aside on the entryway table and then dropped to his knees as he picked up a note that was attached to a baby carrier with a very tiny and very irate infant sitting in it.
Michael,
I’m so sorry to leave her with you like this, but I have no choice. Her mother died giving birth and she needs her father. That’s you, in case you were wondering. Please, please take care of her. She was wanted and she was and is loved. Her name is Lucy. She’s two weeks old. In the envelope is all the information I can give you right now. Please forgive me for doing this to you, but know that my heart is breaking as I leave her.
There was no signature, no contact information, nothing apart from the note. And Lucy was an unhappy baby. Not having the slightest clue what to do, Michael grasped the car seat and brought the infant into the house, where he then struggled to get her out of the straps and awkwardly pick her up.
She didn’t stop crying. Reaching for this phone, he dialed his father.
“I need you now!” He hung up, knowing his dad would come, right after calling his brothers. What in the world was he going to do?
Can't get enough of Melody Anne's Unexpected Hero series?
Jackson Whitman doesn’t believe in love, or commitment, or forever—not since he lost his wife and daughter. But the beautiful woman sitting next to him at the gate has him rethinking that position. Can he convince her to be his for the night? Or will she convince him to be hers for a lifetime?
Her Unexpected Hero
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Hawk's sister, Taylor Winchester, needs some R&R after her accident, so he sends her up to his cabin to get away from it all. But she can't escape Travis, her brother's best friend who already claimed the cabin for some peace and quiet of his own.
Who I Am with You
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Dr. Spence Whitman sees how happy his Anderson friends are in married life, he’s itching to get hitched too! But how will he find The One? If he could just stop getting distracted by his gorgeous surgical resident, he could start looking for the perfect wife . . .
Her Hometown Hero
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MELODY ANNE is the New York Times bestselling author of the Unexpected Heroes series—a spin-off of her wildly popular Billionaire Bachelors novels featuring the handsome Anderson men—as well as the Baby for the Billionaire series and the Surrender series. She lives in the Pacific Northwest. Visit MelodyAnne.com for more information.
FOR MORE ON THIS AUTHOR: authors.simonandschuster.com/Melody-Anne
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Also available from Melody Anne and Pocket Books
Her Unexpected Hero
Who I Am With You
Her Hometown Hero
Following Her
“Safe in His Arms” in Baby, It’s Cold Outside
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Pocket Books
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This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously.
Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2016 by Melody Anne Null
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First Pocket Books paperback edition March 2016
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Cover design by No Fuss Design
Cover image © Rick Seymour/Getty Images (landscape) © Gerber86/Getty Images (couple)
ISBN 978-1-4767-7859-4
ISBN 978-1-4767-7862-4 (ebook)
CONTENTS
Acknowledgments
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
