James let out a small breath he’d been holding, relieved.
“Well, there’s a piece of good news,” he muttered.
The second the last clasp came undone, he handed Queso the cell phone.
“Call in backup and EMTs,” he said. “Tell them an officer has been stabbed in the stomach and needs immediate care.”
Queso rocked to his side, obviously trying to get up. “You need help now,” he tried, wincing. He looked like someone had used him as a punching bag. “She had another guy with her at the house.”
James shook his head, checked his gun and then pointed to the phone.
“Suzy needs you to make that call. Now.”
He didn’t wait to see what the boy would say. Gun out, ready to pull the trigger when needed, James went back out into the main warehouse.
Neither Katrina nor her last lackey met him there. Surely they’d heard the ruckus. James kept looking left and right, walking softly. No one jumped out or shot at him. That was good...but it also gave him a bad feeling.
Had Katrina already jumped ship? And with his nephew in tow?
James stopped at Suzy’s side, eyes going straight to the knife.
This time it was he who had been distracted.
“Move and I shoot.” Shame and anger set James’s shoulders straight. “Drop the gun, slowly, or we shoot you both.” Katrina’s voice was calm. Steady. She meant what she said.
James didn’t need to keep looking at Suzy—the beautiful woman he’d been lucky enough to fall asleep holding that morning—to know the risk wasn’t worth her life.
His life, maybe, but not hers.
He did as he was told.
“Kick it away from you and turn around slowly,” the lackey ordered.
Again, James followed the direction.
Katrina wasn’t smiling anymore. “Do you know how a man like Lester got the drop on the infamous Gardner Todd?” she asked. Her voice was ice. “Gardner became sloppy. He didn’t see a threat that was right in front of him. He was cocky. Just like you.” She nodded to the office. The door was open. He’d been so transfixed by Suzy that he hadn’t even heard them walk out.
“Some would call walking into the unknown courageous,” he offered. “And one thing Gardner never lacked was courage.”
“Courage has no place in this world,” she snapped. “All it does is get people like you into a grave faster while pissing the rest of us off.” Her stance changed. It hardened. She’d just come to a decision and was resolute about it. “I’m over it. And, just like Gardner, I’m over you.”
A gunshot exploded through the warehouse. Followed by another. Then one more.
Baby Gardner started to cry.
James looked on, wide-eyed, as Katrina fell to the ground with a cry. Her lackey dropped next.
A fourth person moved farther inside the room.
It was Sully.
He looked rough, slouched and holding his side with one hand and his gun in the other, but he was still standing.
James couldn’t claim the same.
Sully cursed something wicked and called out to him. But it was too late.
James clutched the bullet wound in his stomach and stumbled to the ground. The last thing he saw before the world got dark was the face of a beautiful woman.
Chapter Twenty-One
Suzy smelled the cake before she ever saw her mother.
Cordelia peeked around the door mere seconds before walking in uninvited, cake tin in hand.
“I brought cake,” she whispered, holding the tin up as if Suzy hadn’t seen it. “He said pound cake was his favorite. So here I am!”
Suzy put her finger to her lips, and the older woman’s eyes widened. They both glanced at the hospital bed in the space between them. James was asleep. He had been since that morning. The night before, he’d woken up for the first time since surgery. But then Suzy had been asleep, riding her own wave of pain medications. The same thing had happened that morning. It felt like they were star-crossed lovers, just waiting for word when the other one was conscious.
Finally Suzy had given up and decided to park herself on the couch in his room. If Katrina’s knife hadn’t managed to miss her major organs, Suzy knew it would be a different story. Yet the tides had turned and she was the one in the hospital room who was in the better condition. Though the nurses were keeping an eye out on her. If she moved around too much she would be banished back to her own room.
She wanted to thank James for what he’d done.
She also just wanted to know he was okay.
The doctors might have already given him two thumbs up after his surgery, but she needed more proof. And she desperately wanted to see the man smile.
“Where’s Chelsea?” her mother asked, putting the cake tin on the table that already held a myriad of flowers. All were from residents of Bates Hill. Once word had gotten out that their beloved millionaire was in the hospital, the floral population in the private wing had grown exponentially. “Did I miss her on the way up here?”
The older woman went to Suzy’s legs, picked them up carefully and then sat beneath them. She readjusted the blanket so it was over both of them. Very much a woman who meant to stay for the long haul.
It warmed Suzy’s heart.
“They finally cleared Queso to leave, so Chelsea took him back to the estate,” she answered. “I suggested she look after him for a few hours, and I said I’d call her if James decided to stop auditioning for Sleeping Beauty.”
The older woman smiled. She looked over at James. “Maybe he just needs to be kissed by his one true love,” she suggested.
While Suzy might have warned her mother off the week before, flustered by the suggestion and even opposed to it, now she found herself smiling.
“I heard his friend is doing better now,” her mother said, apparently deciding not to push the topic of kissing James Callahan. Though Suzy knew that would probably only last until both were discharged from the hospital.
“Douglas? Yeah, thank goodness Queso sent first responders to the estate, too, when he made the call for backup. The doctor said Douglas might not have made it another hour, otherwise.”
The older woman nodded and then patted Suzy’s leg. “It’s been one heck of a year,” she pointed out. “One too many hospital trips for my liking.”
Suzy tried to reach out to touch her mother’s hand, but the stitches across her knife wound pulled. She lowered herself back down. Her mother frowned. “One too many scars on my baby girl.”
“Mom, didn’t you hear? Guys dig scars. Or, wait, is that just chicks?”
It took a moment, but her mother laughed. “Oh, Suzy Q, I do think you’re the best thing I’ve done in my life.” Her expression softened. “I’m sure wherever your daddy is right now, he’s so proud of you.”
The warmth in Suzy’s heart grew in size. While they often drove each other crazy, at the end of the day, their love was strong.
Being reminded of that did Suzy some good. She surprised her mother by being completely honest, no humor attached. “Billy told me that Daddy would have liked James. I believe him, too. Even if he hadn’t taken a bullet for me, I think he’s one of the best people I’ve ever met or will meet.”
Her mother’s smile was back in force. “I agree.” There was a glint in the older woman’s eye, a look that told Suzy her mother had, indeed, picked up on the fact that Suzy and James had gotten close. In more ways than one. “He’s got a big heart. But...”
Suzy felt her eyebrows rise. While she’d been more than ready to criticize James the week before, now she’d gotten to know him. Gotten to know his family. Understood that he would always do his best to help people, especially those closest to him. He was a compassionate man, and that, above all else, had made her fall in love with him.
Which was definitely somethin
g she hoped to explore with him when he was out of recovery.
So, what strike could her mother have against him? “But?” she repeated.
Her mother let out a long, low sigh. “But when you two need a babysitter, please look somewhere else, because, honey, I already did my time with you and Justin, and goodness knows I need all the help I can get when it comes to beauty sleep.”
Suzy wanted to laugh but knew the movement would upset her stitches and be more than painful. Instead she smiled. Her mother, tough as nails, had a habit of becoming cranky if her eight hours weren’t met.
“Mom, Mara has been babysitting the last two days. Not you,” Suzy reminded her. “You and Justin weren’t even in the same house with them!”
Her mother shrugged. “I’m just letting you know that, while I don’t mind helping out every now and then, you two are young enough to take on the task of trying to get that baby boy on a normal sleep schedule.”
Suzy rolled her eyes and glanced at James.
He was looking right back, smiling.
The worry that had clenched itself around her heart like a vise finally loosened.
“Is it just the pain meds or do I smell cake?” he asked.
And just like that, Suzy felt like she could fully breathe again.
* * *
TWO WEEKS LATER, James was sitting on his back patio, enjoying the weather and holding his nephew, when Hank approached him. Hank didn’t wait for an invitation and took a seat in what James was hoping would be Suzy’s chair when she arrived for lunch. He had two envelopes in his hand.
“I hear you took out Grayton McKenzie with a table,” he said in greeting. “I have to say I’m sorry I missed that. I guess your brother wasn’t the only one who could think on his feet.”
James smiled. He considered it a compliment. “I hear you took out two men with your bare hands at Suzy’s house, not to mention the men you fought off at The Tavern,” he pointed out. “Maybe we’re all a little like Gardner at the end of the day.”
Hank chuckled. The baby in James’s arms wiggled but didn’t wake. Hank looked down at the boy. The sleeping baby seemed to sober him.
“While I’d really get a kick out of you describing handing Grayton his backside in detail, I got my lady in the car and some business to finish before we leave.” He took the first envelope and set it down on the patio table at James’s side. “This is for you from me. Well, from your brother, really. It’s the deed to the bar. It’s yours now.”
James couldn’t hide his surprise. “The Tavern? I can’t take your bar.”
Hank grinned. “Never was really mine,” he said. “When I first met Gardner I was pretty down on my luck. I had problems on problems, and nowhere and no one to turn to but the bottle. I find myself at an old bar, wasted and alone, when this guy takes a seat on the stool next to me and just starts talking. At first I didn’t know what he was yammering on about. He opened with a joke about the weather, but he kept going, and then I started yammering, too. The next thing I knew, I was a regular and Gardner was a friend.
“Then, soon after that, he offered me a job. Said I had good character and he needed someone like that to take over the bar and run things.” He shrugged. “I thought the man was crazy for just giving it to me, but I took the job with pride. Gardner floated around after that, but when he was in town he’d come in. Eventually he started opening up a bit, talking about how he wished his brother could see the place. Said you two used to talk about owning a bar when you were younger.”
James smiled. Gardner had named the bar The Tavern because they had picked it out when they were boys.
Hank didn’t miss the smile. “Anyways, since I can never repay Gardner for what he did, I thought I’d at least do something he never could.” He motioned to the envelope again. “I think he thought one day he’d finally show the place to you, so it only seems fitting.”
James kept his smile but shook his head. “I appreciate it, I really do, but I can’t take your bar. I’ll just come in and drink at it, instead.”
This time Hank was the one who shook his head.
“Because of it and Gardner, me and my lady are good on money. Plus, we’re feeling restless. Might hop on up to North Carolina to see some of her kin, or just jump a plane to Hawaii for a few weeks.” He shrugged. “I don’t need the bar anymore. And, really, I think I was always just holding on to it for you. All I ask is that you keep Rudy on. He’s a good guy. Deal?”
James didn’t have to think long. “Deal,” he agreed.
“Good.” Hank put the second envelope on the table. Unlike the other one, it had the letter J handwritten on its front. It was also much thicker. James sat straighter. “I can’t speak for Gardner on most things, but what I can say is this. He loved that kid in your arms, and he loved you and your sister something fierce. In that envelope is proof of both. But that’s something you should read on your own. I won’t spoil it.”
Hank stood. He held his hand out. James shook it.
“And now it’s time for me to go. You take care of yourself and that little boy.”
James stood, moving the sleeping child to his other arm. The baby stirred, but again didn’t wake.
“You too, Hank. I can’t thank you enough for everything you did.”
The man smirked. “Buy me a drink whenever I’m back in town and we’ll be square,” he said.
James laughed. “I guess now I know just the place.”
Hank didn’t linger. He walked around the side of the house and was gone. A few seconds later the back door opened.
“Hey, Padre, was that Hank?”
James turned to see Queso walking over. Like James and Suzy, he’d had to be hospitalized after the warehouse. Or, more accurately, after what had happened at the estate. According to Suzy, Queso had done everything in his power to try to protect her and the baby. Just as he’d tried to help Chelsea and James when Katrina had first broken in. James was still trying to find a way to repay him for both. He figured giving the young man a place to stay for a while was the least he could do. And, he had to admit, he was happy that the boy had agreed.
Sully had come in and helped save the day, shooting both Katrina and her henchman before either could finish the job on him or kill Suzy. When Sully had gone to get the information that James had asked for on Gardner after they’d met in the freezer, Sully had been ambushed by Katrina. She’d nearly killed him. He, however, had decided to only wound her and not end her life when the opportunity arose.
“I want her to sit in a prison cell, letting everyone know that Sully the Butcher doesn’t stand for anything she did,” he’d told James in the hospital. At the time, James had made his own decision not to mention that a lot of the anger Sully was feeling had to do with the beating Katrina’s men had given Queso. Sully might pretend to be tough, but there was undoubtedly a soft spot there for the boy.
Which made his insistence that Queso leave his organization surprising. Or maybe not.
“I don’t think that kid ever believed in what we do,” he’d said. “I think he just needed to belong somewhere.”
Now that somewhere included being with James, Chelsea, Baby Gardner, Justin, Cordelia and Suzy. Since they’d been released from the hospital, they’d all seen a lot of one another.
“It sure was,” James answered, scooping up the envelope with The Tavern’s deed in it. “Too bad you’re not twenty-one yet. Because apparently, Queso, we now own a bar.”
The boy looked confused but didn’t have time to ask for an explanation. Baby Gardner started to fuss.
“Chelsea sent me out here to get him,” he said. “It’s time for his food.”
James passed the baby over with a laugh and then looked at the second envelope on the table.
“You two head in,” he said. “I need to read something first.”
Queso didn’t question him
. However, he did pause in the doorway. “Oh, and, Padre? You can call me by my real name. It’s Jensen.”
Then the boy was in the kitchen, the door shut behind him. James couldn’t help but smile wide.
“Deal,” he said to himself, sitting back down. He opened the envelope, trying to ready himself for what he was about to find.
It was a fool’s errand.
Gardner had managed to fill the envelope with three things. The first was an official birth certificate. His son had been born in Birmingham, and his name was Adam. James took a minute to let that sink in. An unexpected weight lifted as he finally knew the name his brother had given his only son.
The second thing was a letter to Adam with a note to read it when he was eighteen. James made the decision not to open it himself.
The third thing was the one that consumed James. It was a letter to him, typed in small font over the front and back and dated a week before Gardner died. It was long and heartfelt, and for the first time James had a clearer picture of his brother’s last ten years. Gardner told stories about his life, along with hopes he had for the future, and fears and regrets he had from the past. He apologized for who he had become, but said he was proud of who James had turned into. And then he told James what he had already guessed. Once Gardner became a father, he’d planned to leave his criminal life to do right by his kid.
This was hard to process all at once for James. He knew he’d spend years going over the letter, reading it when he missed his big brother, but there was one line that James would never forget.
Just remember, kid, life is chaos, but that never has to be a bad thing.
As he put the letter back in the envelope, the sound of laughter came through the back door. James watched as a conga line of people marched out with food on their plates. Chelsea had Adam and both were giggling at something while Jensen balanced their plates. Justin and Cordelia were right behind them, having their own conversation, which meant the woman he’d seen every day since the hospital was not far behind.
Two seconds later he was staring at that beautiful face, grin and all. She dropped her plate off at the patio table and walked over with purpose. That purpose included a kiss against his lips and a laugh. She eyed the envelopes and then his face, picking up on the emotions he’d just flown through at receiving each, he had no doubt. James liked to believe he was hard to read but was finding there was one woman who had no problem doing exactly that.
Loving Baby Page 18
