by Alicia Scott
Tamara scrambled to her feet, tripping over the coffee table and barely catching herself. Her arm felt invaded by an army of red ants. Her cheek was on fire. Behind her, she heard the senator's roar as he launched himself up. "Dammit!"
She dove behind the overstuffed leather trail. The gun exploded, the bullet burying itself in the pillow. Patty cried hysterically.
"Shut up! Shut up!" the senator yelled.
Tamara scampered for the front door. Plaster exploded above her head, the dust stinging her eyes.
She heard another cry. She turned to see Patty swipe at the senator with her Scotch-filled tumbler. He yelped as the whiskey burned his eyes, then pistol-whipped Patty hard. She fell back as her nose gave with a sickening crunch.
"Patty!"
The senator raised the gun, aimed it at Patty's seated form and fired.
"No!" Tamara screamed and the pillows turned red. She saw the haze of rage contort the senator's face. She saw him turn, already aiming. She dove for the front door and bullets rained over her head.
She slid behind the dividing wall, finding meager cover. She was trapped, pinned down. He was going to kill her. And from the living room, she heard Patty's faint moans as the life drained out of her.
No! No more waiting for someone else to save her while her friend and family died. She was sick of it. She'd had enough. She wanted to fight and she wanted to win.
She rose with a cry. From far off, she saw the senator raise the gun. She lunged for the door, her finger curling around the knob, her hand twisting the handle. His finger squeezed the trigger.
She flung open the door and leapt into the brilliant embrace of the sheriff's headlights. Gunshots exploded around her. She was falling down, down, down. The crickets cried for her.
C.J. yelled her name.
The world went black.
Epilogue
« ^
Tamara didn't wake up in the hospital. There were no nurses poking her with IV needles, no cops standing at the foot of her bed with somber faces, no doctors asking her if she could wiggle her toes. She opened her eyes to C.J.'s anxious face and the sound of sirens splitting the air. Red lights danced over his lean cheeks from the approaching ambulance. Men shouted in the distance, Over here, over here. Night washed over the scene thickly.
"Don't move," C.J. ordered. His arms cradled her against his seated form. She couldn't have gone anywhere if she tried.
"The senator."
"Brody has him."
"Patty…"
"The medics are here. Are you hurt? Can you move? Are you shot?" He relinquished his hold long enough for his hands to dance over her body. When he was convinced all body parts were accounted for, he scooped her up again.
He was rocking her back and forth. It made her dizzy, but she didn't feel like telling him to stop.
His chest felt strong and warm.
Her ears rang from too many gunshots. Her ribs hurt from the force of her landing. Her mind remembered what Patty had said—what Patty had done—and she suspected she'd sustained some injuries much deeper down, in the dark places where she still mourned her parents and now had to add the loss of her best friend. She would get to deal with those wounds later and over time. Maybe she'd haul out C.J.'s punching bag for the occasion.
"Patty shot Spider," she said simply now, "because he overheard her confessing to her mother's grave."
"I know, sweetheart. I went to the senator's house. I found a letter Patty had mailed to him just a few days ago saying she couldn't take it anymore. She wanted to confess everything. It appears the senator caught the first flight here after receiving it."
"She was my best friend."
"I know," he whispered with genuine feeling.
"C.J., don't let me go."
"I won't."
He kept his word, too, until the paramedics finally arrived and took her away.
* * *
At the hospital, they treated Tamara for shock and exhaustion, monitored her for a possible concussion and bound her bruised ribs. Patty wasn't so lucky. The bullet had rattled around inside her ribs, doing a great deal of internal damage before finally lodging in her spine. She was listed in critical condition and the doctors didn't expect her to make it. Two hours later she slid away, her father holding her hand.
The senator took a bullet to the shoulder. The injuries were not serious, but the publicity was. In a matter of hours, Sheriff Brody held a news conference announcing a full investigation into the senator's role in a ten-year-old auto accident, while C.J. leaked a copy of Patty's letter to the press.
The next day, a private investigator came forward under pressure from the D.A. He stated he'd been hired ten years ago by the senator to watch Tamara Allistair. The senator had never told him anything more or anything less. For the first nine-and-a-half years, the P.I. had simply issued reports every six months and collected his cash. Then she'd come to Sedona and his surveillance had stepped up to minute-by-minute monitoring with nightly briefings to the senator.
But he just watched, the man swore. That's all the senator asked.
The real testimony came from Patty's letter and tragic death. The D.A. swore to pursue the senator on charges of Murder One.
C.J. and Tamara left that for the bureaucrats to work out. They understood enough. They'd been through enough. It was time to heal.
A little before five, they released Tamara from the hospital. An orderly wheeled her downstairs, where she found C.J. waiting for her. He leaned against the wall with his hip jutting out and his arms akimbo. His hands were stabbed deeply in his back pockets, and his hair waved over his forehead. He saw Tamara and his face split into a grin, crinkling the corners of his blue eyes.
"Oh, my," sighed the female orderly with clear reverence.
Tamara agreed wholeheartedly. She held out her hands wordlessly, and C.J. took her home.
For one week, they shut out the world. They slept together, ate together, made love together. They told silly jokes and stayed up late with rented movies and fresh popcorn. They invited Sheila and Gus over for dinner. They played house.
C.J. never pushed, never probed, never alluded to the future. But sometimes Tamara caught him watching her from across the room, his blue eyes intent, his face somber. Sometimes she woke up in the middle of the night and discovered him propped up on one arm, watching her sleep.
He didn't ask, but the question hovered in the subtext of everything they said, everything they did: Would she stay in Sedona or return to New York? Would she love him forever?
She didn't know the answer. Until the night she found herself up on one arm watching him sleep. The afternoon she caught herself gazing at him from across the room. The moment when she leaned over and kissed him simply because she had to.
Monday, before he was due at the bar, she handed him his coat and picked up his car keys. Wordlessly, she drove him to the Chapel of the Holy Cross. And for the first time in ten years, she stepped inside a house of God.
They sat at the front pew. Through the arching window, the sky was the color of bone. The sun didn't come out today. The rock monuments remained a muted amber. Not even Arizona was beautiful every day of the week.
After a bit, she rested her head against C.J.'s shoulder. The silence settled over them.
She'd come to this church as a child. She'd sat with her parents, risen with her parents, prayed with her parents. In the misty shadows, she could almost see her mother singing Hallelujah while her father mouthed the words. In her mind, they turned toward her and smiled.
Something inside her loosened, broke free, let the memories in, the good, the bad. Her family was in this church, in the values they'd shared, in the traditions they'd taught her. If she closed her eyes, she could reach out her hand and touch them.
She kept her hand on her lap and replayed the memories, instead. It felt right. The images filled in the hollow places, offering a soothing balm for her wounds. You never realized how far you had journeyed, until you returned ho
me.
After a while, she raised her head.
"I could open a public relations office here."
"Yeah?" C.J. stretched out his legs. "That would be nice," he said noncommittally. "Otherwise, I was going to spend a fortune flying to New York."
She stared at the Arizona skyline. "I'm going to marry you."
"Well, it's about time someone made an honest man out of me."
"Can I use your punching bag?"
"Whenever you like."
"Can I wear your clothes?"
"When I'm not hell-bent on getting you naked."
"Will you read the books you bought with me? Will you come with me to a survivors' group?"
"I think I should."
She slipped her arms around his waist. Her mother was smiling. She could feel it in the softness of twilight.
"I love you, C.J.," she whispered.
"I love you, too."
* * * * *
But what really happened to Max? Watch for the conclusion of Maximillian's Children in BRANDON'S BRIDE, coming in February from Silhouette Intimate Moments.
Inhaltsverzeichnis
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
Epilogue
