“As safe as anyone can be with Brady looking after her. Just the way I’ll be looking after you until this guy’s behind bars. He was aiming at you, April. Brady says the shot’s trajectory had the shooter lining up with your head just the way we suspected.”
But April’s thoughts had already flown to Rory and her aunt and uncle, who were staying with him at her home. “What if this person goes to my house looking for me and finds my family there?”
Nate put his hand on her shoulder. “I forgot to tell you earlier. When I called the house to check on my mom, the friend staying with her said that your aunt and uncle were taking Rory out of town to their place. He’ll be safe there, April, even if he does freak out a little about having to sleep in a strange bed.”
She hugged herself. “I have to go and help them. Uncle Jimmy and Aunt Sylvia aren’t young anymore, and Rory’s—”
“Their kids will pitch in, right?”
“Maybe. If it’s convenient,” she said, thinking of the many times her cousins had bailed out when anyone made the mistake of taking them up on their halfhearted offers of help. How could April trust them now, with Rory still so emotionally scarred by their mother’s death? “At least until I can get there.”
“You’re going to have to let them rise to the occasion,” Nate said, giving her a look that brooked no argument. “Because I’ve already told you, you’re not leaving my sight for one minute. Not until the man who wants you dead is behind bars.”
Chapter 4
The sun had barely risen the next morning when Dr. Han came in to check on Nate’s father’s condition.
“Glad to see he’s held his own through the night,” she reported, keeping her voice low so as not to disturb April, who had finally nodded off a couple of hours earlier. “Vitals are improving.”
“That means he’s getting better?” Nate asked, coming to his feet so he could watch the doctor’s eyes as she answered.
“It’s certainly an encouraging sign,” Dr. Han said, choosing her words carefully, “as long as the trend continues.”
“How soon before you can take him off that ventilator?” The wires and monitors were bad enough, but Nate didn’t want his mother hearing the machine’s troubling artificial pauses and disturbing whooshing sound. Didn’t want her to face the guilt Nate himself was grappling with for listening to the surgeon rather than his father’s stated wishes.
“You need to understand, Mr. Wheeler, your father’s body is still recovering from a critical injury, shock from blood loss and the surgery to repair the wounds. Infection is a risk as well, and we don’t yet know about what damage lack of oxygen might have caused—”
“In other words, you don’t know whether the man that wakes up—if he wakes up—will still be the same person who—the same guy who—” Embarrassed by his burning eyes, Nate turned his head away, remembering how his dad had been there every minute through those dark days last December, how he’d been the one to make Nate believe that no wheelchair would ever hold him.
To Nate’s surprise, April was right there beside him, slipping an arm around his waist. And it felt so right, that she should be here, standing by his side, even though he knew it couldn’t last.
“I think you’ll find that none of you will be the same person,” Dr. Han said, her dark eyes thoughtful as she looked at the two of them. “Crisis changes people, but that doesn’t mean your family has to fall apart.”
Attempting a smile, he told the surgeon, “I think you might’ve missed your calling. Or did you minor in counseling?”
She smiled back at them and nodded, then excused herself to finish her rounds.
By the time Nate updated his mother, who’d recovered from the sedative she’d been given and would be leaving with his father’s longtime friend, Joe Mueller, in a few hours, a new nurse arrived with the shift change. After giving Nate and April a once-over, she wasted no time issuing marching orders.
“Cafeteria first,” she said, her steel-gray bob of a helmet and no-nonsense manner hinting that she’d been at this for decades. “Then try the Restway Hotel. It’s clean and new and nice as any. And I’m not having any arguments. You won’t be of use to anyone if you crash and burn the first day.”
“You’re making it sound like you think this could go on a while,” Nate said.
“Better a long recovery than a swift conclusion. That’s what we tell everyone in the trauma ICU.”
Nate glanced down at April, noticing the smudges of exhaustion beneath her brown eyes. And he could use a few hours’ sleep himself, if he was going to be in any shape to support his mother later.
“I think we’ll do that,” he told the nurse before securing a promise that she would call his cell phone if there was any change in his father’s condition.
After a quick breakfast downstairs, he and April headed for the address the nurse had given them for the hotel. While they waited for the man behind the desk to finish with another customer, April surprised Nate by pulling out a credit card.
“I should at least pay for my own room,” she said, eyes shining with the reflection of the white Christmas lights hung around the lobby. “I’ve already cost your family so much, with the wedding, and—”
“Put that away. For one thing, I was serious when I said I’d be sticking close.” For another, there was no way he was letting a woman he knew was staring down the barrel of money issues pay when he had plenty.
She gestured toward the lobby. “Really? Do you honestly think this assassin is lurking behind the greenery, waiting to hop into the elevator and follow us upstairs? It’s bad enough to have you hovering outside when I’m in the restroom.”
Nate checked out a new arrival, a paunchy business type who’d just exited the elevator.
“I’m not taking chances with my son’s life,” Nate said, but it was the thought of April, of someone cruel enough to leave her like his dad or worse, that put him more on edge than ever.
“With your son’s life...well, that’s just fine,” she said, the color staining her cheeks telling him he’d once more managed to say the wrong thing. “But make sure to get us a room with two double beds.”
“Come on, April. We’re both totally exhausted, so what do you have against a king?” he asked.
She treated him to a withering look before saying, “Nothing in particular. I just don’t want my son’s father hurting his back sleeping on the floor.”
Up in their room, April used the shower first before coming out wearing a silky-looking red nightgown that clung to her new contours. Curves that had Nate’s full attention, though he’d been half asleep.
When she caught him looking, she blushed. “It’s what I had packed for, you know, the honeymoon.” She used her fingers to sketch out the final word, as if she’d expected that their three days at the lakeside spa would be an even bigger sham than their engagement.
“It’s—it’s nice,” he said. Too nice. He would’ve had her out of it in no time. “You look amazing in it. Gorgeous. And yesterday...that dress you wore was...”
Noticing her stricken expression, he remembered how the bridal gown had been her mother’s, though April had had the new trim added when she’d had it altered. “Did you save it?” he asked. “Maybe we could find a cleaner who could get out all the—”
“I threw it away. I had to. A nurse caught me outside the restroom and explained it was a—a biohazard, with all that blood. Besides,” April added, shaking her head as she crossed her arms, “you can’t think that I could ever wear it again. Or even stand to look at it after...”
As she wound down, he said nothing. Had nothing to offer. Nothing that she wanted, anyway.
By the time Nate shaved and showered, April had shut off the lights and closed the curtains. She lay huddled on the bed nearest the window, the covers drawn so high, he could only see the top of her head. She looked so forlorn there, so isolated in her misery, that he was tempted to crawl in beside her and pull her into his arms. To tell her he was sorry.
&nbs
p; But the temptation of the curves beneath that silky red gown had him rethinking the idea. Instead, he claimed the other bed and tried in vain to relax. With the shooter still on the loose, every odd noise snapped Nate into full alert mode, from what proved to be a maid pushing a squeaky-wheeled cleaning cart to a door closing down the hall, the room’s occupant yakking on her cell phone as she headed for the elevator.
When he did finally drop off, disjointed images spun through his dreams, each one more disturbing than the last. At one point, Nate jerked awake, his body shaking as he snatched up the silent phone beside him, panicking to imagine he had missed a call from the nurse.
Finally, he sat up in bed, raking his fingers through his sweat-damp hair, torn between the desire to rush back to the hospital to stand vigil and his inability to leave April here to rest alone. And he couldn’t bring himself to wake her when she so clearly needed her sleep—not yet.
But when he glanced over toward her bed, he saw that she’d rolled to face him.
“Can’t wind down?” The voice floating through the darkness was barely louder than the low hum of a vacuum cleaner from somewhere down the hall.
“Sorry if I’m bugging you.” Frustration ground his words down into harshness. “Every car door slamming outside takes me right back to the gunshot. Every time the heat kicks on, I hear my father’s ventilator. I think about my mother on her way here and the guy out there, staring down a barrel and taking aim at you. Part of me hopes Brady won’t catch him, so I can kill the bastard with my own two hands.”
The heat chose that moment to come back on, its quiet drone going on so long that Nate began to suspect she had fallen back to sleep.
At last, she whispered, “Close your eyes, Nate. Let it go now. Let it go so you’ll be able to help your mother when she comes.”
He sighed, wishing it were that easy, but he humored April and lay down again. A moment later, he heard the squeak of her bed and the pad of bare feet on the carpet.
When his mattress dipped, he held his breath until she had slipped beneath the covers beside him. When she lifted his arm and snuggled to let him spoon her, he moved to pull her back against his chest. It wasn’t her back, though, that fired his imagination but the urge to explore the changing landscape of her pregnant body. To taste the sweet new fullness of her breasts—would they be more sensitive to his touch?—and stroke the growing swell of the new life forming, to marvel at a miracle two parts bourbon and three bitter disappointment.
But it wasn’t disappointment he felt as his fingertips glided over the surprising firmness of her belly. Wasn’t disappointment that had him pressing his mouth against her neck, his teeth lightly pinching the flesh until she gasped.
In the small sound, he heard surprise, and maybe the same desire he was feeling. The need to obliterate the memories, if only for a while.
When she turned her head toward him, he captured her mouth with his. The contact was explosive, the heat and pleasure of it burning off every other thought. Everything except his need to have this woman, body, heart and soul.
She moaned and wriggled against him, the sounds of her excitement only serving to inflame him. His fingers, kneading her breasts, found the tight bud of a nipple. Kissing his way down her neck and chest, he drew the hard tip into his mouth.
But she was pushing at him, pushing him back and saying, “No, please, no, I never meant for—”
Confused, he pulled back. “But I thought—”
“You’re way too sober for this, aren’t you?” she asked, a cynical edge to the words.
He noticed she was breathing hard, too, and that kiss—he could have sworn she’d been responding, feeling the same rush of raw attraction he had. “Then why did you come over?” he asked. “You’re the one who insisted on the separate beds.”
“I just wanted you to be still,” she said, turning away from him. “You were bothering me with all the tossing and the turning.”
He scoffed at her words, knowing a bald lie when he heard one. “What is it you’re so afraid of? It’s not like you can get more pregnant.”
“I wanted to help you sleep. That’s all.”
“Are you sure about that, April?” He nipped the lobe of her ear gently, shifting enough to let her feel what she was doing to his body.
She rolled away and sat up on the bed’s edge, and even in the dim light, he saw her shaking her head. “I’m not going to do this. I won’t be the woman that you go to when you’re trying to forget things. The old friend who’s only good enough when no one better is around.”
“Is that who you think I am?” Nate asked, not realizing until the words were out that maybe he had been that guy for a good chunk of his thirty-two years. But even if he could reclaim the life his final ride had stolen, he could no longer quite remember why it had seemed so important. “And who says any of those girls I dated were half the woman you are?”
“Too little, too late, Bull Boy,” April said, padding back to the bed where she’d been sleeping. “So go to sleep. On your own side of the room.”
“I will, then,” he said, trying to hide how much it bugged him that she wouldn’t believe what he had told her, “but I promise you, you don’t know what you’re missing.”
“If it was so darned fabulous the first time, don’t you think I’d probably remember?”
Nate winced, reminded of why he’d so abruptly sworn off drinking, then rolled over in his own bed. “Guess it’s a good thing, then, I left you with a little souvenir.”
He lay there, sleepless, for a long time, the pleasure of getting the last word in turning to ashes in his mouth. Because for all he’d told himself these past few weeks that he had manned up and done the right thing by April, he saw now it hadn’t been enough. Not nearly.
It hadn’t been a tenth of what a heart like hers deserved.
* * *
It needed to be wrapped up, the man behind the desk knew as he rose to grab his jacket. The target had to die. No more screwups like the wedding. No more trying to make a statement by having it done where cameras would be rolling and witnesses on scene to talk to the reporters. Where the bereaved groom would be so stoic, breaking hearts as he spoke with the press. His handsome face and ill-fated final pro ride were already famous among fans of rodeo, and the media would be sure to pick up on his grief, splashing visuals from his days on the circuit across their blood-soaked newscasts.
And the perfect statement to get across to anyone who guessed that he was coming for them, too, if they didn’t back off. Or sending someone, anyway, someone he could trust to get things done and get away without leaving a trace.
With the shooter he’d sent missing in action—either scrambling to save his own neck or out to salvage what he could—the man locked up his office and headed for his sleek Mercedes, taking comfort in the fact that he’d used an intermediary. But then again, he was no amateur, to leave a trail for the authorities to follow.
He opened a brand-new burner phone, also purchased via a third party, to call his contact once more and make a backup plan. This time, however, he specified that it must be done as expediently as possible, with no fuss and no fanfare. Just as long as the target was eliminated...with the biggest bonus he could manage, if it was finished before Christmas Day.
* * *
By the time the two of them returned to the hospital a few hours later, April was still fuming. Nate, too, seemed in a bad mood, though not for the reason she expected.
“I was in the wrong,” he said as they approached the building’s lobby doors, both of them wearing the jeans and warm jackets they’d had packed away, “poking at you like that earlier. We’ve got problems, grown-up troubles that it’s time for us to deal with, so no more arguing like a couple of schoolkids. There’s way too much at stake to mess this up.”
Cold as it was, April’s face burned. Who would have ever guessed that Nate would be the one pointing out the high road? The one who was proving he had changed more than she’d thought possible.
“It wasn’t just you,” she admitted, reminding herself that she’d already inherited the responsibility for Rory, and in a few short months, she’d be a mother, too.
On some level, though, she understood her and Nate’s squabbling was a form of self-defense. A way to keep the real issues at bay as long as they could. But as badly as she’d wanted to bury the feelings he had stirred with his touch, sniping at him hadn’t helped her. Nor had it erased her gnawing doubts about the way she’d backed out on their nuptials.
If you hadn’t, you’d be dead now, and my first grandchild with you. It was her mother’s voice again, sending chills skating along April’s backbone. A ripple of nausea had her placing her hand on her stomach.
When she stumbled, Nate took her arm. “You okay?”
“Just a little clumsy, that’s all, tripping on my own feet.”
He studied her a moment, his sharp, brown eyes assessing, and it struck her again how mouthwatering he was, whether in the black tux he’d had on yesterday or the jeans and button-front red shirt he wore with a distressed leather jacket. Between his handsome face and the muscular, trim body, she half expected to be set upon by a pack of the man’s former groupies any minute.
“There’s no need to worry,” he said, ignoring the canned strains of “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” floating through the lobby. “I’ve got your back now, April.”
As they walked, she noticed, too, the way his gaze touched on every person they passed, and she, too, kept her eyes peeled, her body tensing when she spotted a man she thought resembled the photograph Brady had sent via text while the two of them were sleeping. A deputy had called last night with a name, too: Dennis Cobb, a man with a long criminal history in Austin. But April, who’d been so emotional about her boss’s death that her memories of the funeral were a jumble, had never seen or heard of him in her life. Or had she?
“It’s not our guy,” Nate assured her, sounding more confident than she felt. But April trusted him, just as she trusted what Kara had said about spotting Cobb at her boss’s funeral.
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