“So he’s still not in custody?”
“Not unless Sheriff McCall’s caught up with him. What with the bad weather fouling up communications, we’re having a little trouble locating him.”
“You can’t reach him, either?” Fear prickled along the back of her neck. A shooter brazen enough to open fire during a well-attended wedding wouldn’t hesitate to kill a lawman.
“We think we’ve got at least one guest missing, too.”
“Who is it?” she asked, trying to recall who she’d seen after the shooting stopped. The trouble was, she’d been so hyper-focused on Nate’s father at the time, she’d tuned out everything else until the moment she’d impulsively jumped into Nate’s truck to follow the helicopter.
“We’re still confirming, checking names off from the guest list, trying to account for everyone,” Anderson said.
“But who do you think it is?”
Before she could get an answer, Nate reached for the phone. “Let me have that.”
Hearing the urgency in his voice, she relinquished his cell.
“What do you hear about my father?” he asked the deputy. “Did he make it to the hospital alive?”
April froze, heart thumping wildly. Why hadn’t she thought to ask about Nate’s father first?
At Nate’s indecipherable grunts, the knot inside her stomach tightened.
“My mother, then?” he asked. “Can you at least tell me how she’s doing? Her blood pressure’s been an issue even before all this—hello?”
Nate glanced down at the screen. “Of all the—the damned battery’s gone dead now.” As they approached a sign reading Lubbock City Limits, he added, “I guess we’ll know soon enough.”
Hearing the dread in his voice, April said, “He’ll make it. He’s a strong man—and so kind, no matter what anybody says about his—”
“His what? You mean his business?” Nate asked, instantly defensive. “Why the hell would you bring that up? You, of all people, should know he’s been out of the private prison industry for two years.”
April cringed, angry with herself for mentioning the touchy subject of Correctional Solutions, the source of much of George Wheeler’s wealth. “You’re absolutely right,” she told Nate. “Forget I said anything about it.”
“I’d like to forget everything about today. But somehow, I don’t figure there’s a chance in hell that’s happening. Do you?”
She blew out a sigh, wishing she could purge much of the past year from her brain. Yet she wouldn’t take back everything...like the unborn child she’d already come to love so deeply that just the thought of holding him took her breath away.
After parking outside the hospital about twenty minutes later, they hurried into an expansive lobby, with April using the blanket to hide as much of her bloody dress as possible. Hampered by all the material, she scrambled to keep pace with Nate’s long-legged strides...
Until he stopped in his tracks so abruptly that she nearly bumped him from behind.
“What’s wrong?” she asked, only to see him staring at the children’s choir that stood in front of a beautifully lit Christmas tree. In the cavernous space, the boys’ and girls’ sweet, clear voices echoed off the glass and marble, the strains of “Joy to the World.”
When he didn’t answer, a chill rippled through her as she remembered how Nate’s mother had brought a little stereo to his bedside last year, insisting that a nonstop barrage of holiday music would cheer him and speed his recovery. But April couldn’t help but wonder, did he think back to the death of the career that had so long defined him every time he heard a carol?
He glanced over at her. “Sorry,” he explained. “Just looking for a sign for the emergency department.”
She didn’t buy it any more than she’d believed his weak reasons for not wanting the musicians to play any Christmas music at their wedding. But he was looking around now, his gaze zeroing in on a desk marked Information.
Before he could start toward it, April caught his arm. “You go on ahead,” she said. “I’ll catch up after I find a place to get out of these sticky clothes.”
“Maybe you should get the doctors to check you out first, as is. Just to be sure everything’s okay with the baby and—”
“I wasn’t the one hurt, Nate, but I really need to change.”
Deciding to back off for now, he noticed she hadn’t brought her suitcase. “Into what?”
“Into something that won’t get me detained and hauled off to the psych ward,” she said, half expecting the children’s choir to break out screaming over the bloody gown at any moment. “I stuffed an outfit into my bag while you were working on the tire.”
“Go ahead,” he told her, his voice hoarse and his coppery eyes glazed with what she recognized as fear—this from the same man who had faced down the meanest bucking bulls the rodeo circuit had to offer. Who had faced down potential death and the chance of permanent paralysis without betraying much more than the sometimes-annoying cockiness that was his response to every challenge.
She ached to reassure him it would be all right, that he’d learn the father who had so patiently taught him everything he knew of horses, who had steadfastly supported Nate through so many ups and downs, would make a full recovery. But she didn’t know that and couldn’t say it, not when both of them had seen the entrance and the exit wound in George Wheeler’s neck. Not when they had heard the rasping and the rattling of a man struggling not to choke on his own blood.
With no words to offer, she acted on impulse, hugging Nate instead. To her surprise, his arms wrapped around her and instead of one of the polite, all-for-show embraces they had shared during their brief, so-called engagement, they squeezed each other, drawing comfort from the years of friendship they had shared.
In the low swell of her belly, April felt a flutter, a stirring that made her gasp.
“Didn’t mean to squash you. Sorry,” Nate said as he let go.
“It wasn’t that. I just—” I just felt our baby, for the first time, moving. I’m sure that had to be it.
Excitement rippled through her, and she badly wanted to tell him all about it, to be like any other first-time expectant mother gushing to the father of her child. But they would never be that couple, and even if they had been, this wasn’t the right time. “See you in a few,” she said, standing on her toes to place a kiss on his jaw.
He hesitated for a moment, studying her face before turning away. She stood, watching him for a few heartbeats until he broke into a jog and disappeared.
After washing up as best she could and changing into the casual green sweater and jeans she’d packed, April found Nate in a small waiting area where she had been directed. Alone in the room, he was rubbing his back, his expression so grim it hurt to meet his gaze.
“Any news?” she asked.
He nodded. “He was breathing when they took him into surgery. That’s something, right?”
“It’s everything,” she said before asking if she could borrow his phone again to give her aunt and uncle her contact information. A few minutes after she’d finished texting them, an angular, dark-haired woman in blue scrubs came out and introduced herself as Dr. Han, the surgeon who had worked on George Wheeler.
Ignoring her suggestion that they sit, Nate said, “Just cut to the chase and tell us. Did my father make it?”
“Please,” April added, uncertain whether she was being polite or begging for the answer they’d both prayed for.
The surgeon nodded, her expression somber. “Your father’s survived the surgery to repair the compromised blood vessels and damage to his trachea.”
“The trachea?” asked April.
“The windpipe, but for now he’s breathing through an opening created in an emergency tracheotomy.”
Nate’s face drained of all color. “Then he wasn’t breathing. Is he—is his brain still...?”
“Before we can do any neurological assessment, we need to worry about stabilizing his vital signs. For now,
he’s under sedation, and a ventilator’s assisting him with respiration.”
Nate stiffened. “You mean a machine’s doing his breathing for him?”
“It’s assisting his own efforts,” she explained patiently, “to give him time to heal. He’s also had a blood transfusion—”
“I can give blood,” Nate blurted, “all the blood he needs.”
“Not single-handedly, I’m afraid, but any donations to our blood bank are certainly welcome.”
Fearing Nate’s emotions were getting him off track, April asked, “Was that the only damage, to the blood vessels and the trachea?”
“That’s the most critical at this point. The rest we can worry about once we’ve gotten him through this period.”
“And what would you say his chances are?” Nate asked.
“It’s very early to predict.”
Frowning, he shook his head. “Just spit it out, doc. Please. Should I be offering my mother hope? Or preparing her for the worst?”
Dr. Han nodded, her large, dark eyes locking with his equally intense gaze. “It’s a very serious injury, Mr. Wheeler, and with the added question of how long he may have been deprived of oxygen, there’s no way to be certain. But I will tell you I’ve seen patients survive traumatic injuries that on presentation looked worse.”
“Survive them with a decent quality of life?” Nate asked. “Because I can tell you one thing. My father’s always said he’d never live hooked up to machines and wires. He’s—he’s said he’d rather... He had some papers drawn up.”
“Don’t get too far ahead of yourself,” Dr. Han advised him. “And don’t ever lose hope, Mr. Wheeler. At times, I’ve seen it take my patients further than any medical intervention we’ve come up with.”
* * *
In a quiet alcove outside the Trauma ICU, Nate found a spot to plug in his phone and made several calls. By the time he’d finished, he had convinced himself that the best thing for everybody would be to send April home before his mother arrived the next morning, thanks to a sympathetic friend of his father’s who’d offered to fly her in his private plane.
But as he returned to his father’s bedside and watched the rise and fall of his chest—the whoosh and odd pauses of that damned ventilator and the beeping of his monitors at odds with everything he would have wanted—Nate’s resolve gave way to an even greater sadness, a sickness of his soul almost impossible to bear.
He couldn’t deny that over the course of the afternoon and evening, April’s presence had been a comfort. Sticking close, she said little, but when she laid a hand on his back, somehow sensing those moments when doubt and grief threatened to consume him, or when she bathed his father’s pale face and combed back his thick, white hair, Nate felt the warmth of her sincerity...and felt grateful, too, to have someone by his side who wouldn’t try to fill the space with words.
Yet for all of that, the anger came over him in waves, and he found himself replaying that awful moment she’d told everyone, I’m sorry. I can’t do this. As if he were the worst damned thing that could ever happen to a woman.
Just as Nate convinced himself that he was letting his wounded pride blind him, he would think about how April had endangered all of them by not mentioning something as important as the threats to her own life. Was she even fit to be a mother, putting their child at such a risk?
But he wouldn’t leave her vulnerable by forcing her to drive home alone. And with his best man, Zach Rayford, tied up with a wife in labor and Brady heaven only knew where, there was no one available that he trusted to come pick up April. No one capable and competent to defend her with a gun, if it came down to an ambush.
Nate looked down toward where she sat, only to see her staring through him, her eyes glazed over as if she were deep in thought or utterly exhausted.
“You haven’t touched the dinner I brought you,” he said, keeping his voice low so the charge nurse would continue to tolerate their after-hours presence.
She eyed the tray, its grilled chicken salad still locked in a plastic clamshell, a look of revulsion twisting her mouth. “I can’t.”
“You need to try. I know you haven’t had a thing since breakfast, if you even ate this morning.”
“There’s no way I could keep it down,” she said, though as far as Nate had heard, what little morning sickness she had suffered had passed weeks before. “My stomach’s upset as it is from the milk I drank.”
“Later, then,” he suggested. “That chair reclines, I think. Why not lean back and try to rest a while?”
April straightened as she rubbed her arms. “I tried while you were on the phone, but every time I close my eyes, I hear the shots and the screams. I see all that blood.” Her gaze slid to his father, with the thick, white bandages encircling his neck.
“You have to take care of yourself, for the baby’s sake, if not yours—”
“Don’t act like you own my body,” she said, her brown eyes fierce.
“There’s no need to get upset. I never said I owned it.”
Coming to her feet, she placed her hand over her small bump and glared at him. “Never even wanted it, once you sobered up.”
He took a step toward her.
She lifted her chin, defiance crackling in her expression. But when he moved in closer, he saw something rawer shimmering behind it. A brand of pain that had a knot forming low in his gut.
Raising a hand to brush a stray auburn strand from her face, he asked, “You think I’ve never wanted you? That’s what this is all about?”
The hurt that bloomed in her eyes told him he’d scored a direct hit. “Why would you possibly want me,” she asked, “when you had all the groupies you could handle?”
He snorted and gestured around the room. “You see any of those gals here with me now, standing by me through this? You run into any at the hospital or the rehab center when you drove for hours to visit?”
She turned and walked over toward the dark window, putting her back toward him. But hiding her face did nothing to disguise the drooping of her shoulders or the slight trembling that led him to believe she might be weeping.
The knot in his gut tightened, and he came up behind her. Telling himself that, between the hormones and the situation, she was as likely to go off on him as the average hand grenade, he hesitated for a moment, then surrendered to the impulse to put his arms around her and place a kiss atop her crown.
She tensed at first while the whoosh and hiss of the ventilator remained as steady as the thumping in Nate’s chest was erratic. After a few moments, he felt her relax, her breathing slowing until it found a natural rhythm. Until it matched his own.
With the scent of her shampoo in his nostrils—a lemony-clean smell that reminded him of summer—and her soft heat pressed against him, Nate felt desire stirring, his body remembering what his mind barely did.
Closing his eyes, he whispered into her ear, “I do love you. You know that, don’t you, April?”
She jerked away from him and spun around, as if he’d gone and pulled the pin. “Love me like a sister, right? Or the way you would an old friend you never meant to sleep with?”
Up until a few months ago, he couldn’t have denied it. But now, with his libido assuring him that things had changed, Nate wasn’t certain how to answer. Because he shouldn’t want this woman, the woman who had spurned him in a way half of Texas must be buzzing about by now. The woman whose secret had left his father fighting for his life.
But from the hurt look in April’s eyes, his hesitation was all the answer that she needed. “I’m heading home tomorrow,” she said. “I don’t belong here with your family. Not after what I’ve done. Please, tell your mom how very sorry I am for everything.”
“Stay,” he told her, wanting to add the words I need you. But with so much bitterness between them, what came out instead was, “At least until I can see to it that you make it back home safely.”
“I’m perfectly capable,” she told him, “of making my own arrangeme
nts.”
“I know you are, but that doesn’t mean—” he started before the now-recharged phone in his pocket began to vibrate.
“Don’t go anywhere,” he said as he pulled out the cell to check it. Seeing the words Trencher Co. Sheriff Dept. on the screen, he added, “This could be the news we’ve been waiting for on Brady.”
As he stepped out to take the phone call, she waited inside the room. Praying, he supposed, as he was, that their friend hadn’t been another casualty of a wedding that never should have been.
* * *
April’s heart leaped to her throat, her anxiety building for what seemed like an eternity before Nate returned.
“First, of all,” he said before she could ask, “they’re safe, Brady and Kara both.”
“You mean Kara was out there with him?” April could scarcely believe that her friend had been the missing guest. Considering how Kara had begged off an invitation to be a bridesmaid because she couldn’t deal with being around Brady after their recent breakup, it was tough to imagine that anything short of life and death circumstances could have driven the two of them together.
“They’re okay,” Nate assured her, “and you’re not going anywhere, especially not back to Rusted Spur on your own.”
“What?” she asked, in the hush between his father’s machine-assisted breaths.
“Brady says Kara saw the shooter—and she recognized the guy from your boss’s funeral.”
April blinked hard, the nausea she’d felt earlier threatening to overwhelm her. “Who was it?” she asked, wondering if it could have been someone she knew. Someone who’d pretended to be there grieving Martin Villareal’s death?
“Brady doesn’t have a name yet, but they’re working hard to figure this out and find the man before he gets the chance to finish what he started.”
“What about Kara?” April thought of the danger to her friend, who’d accompanied her to the funeral when Nate had a ranch emergency involving an injured colt. If the shooter had seen her, too, she could easily be a target. “Will she be safe?”
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