by Lori Foster
To hush her ramblings, Quinton pressed a firm kiss to her mouth. “It’s all right, honey. The boys will be thrilled to know Denny, and I can’t even imagine their reactions to meeting the famous Jude Jamison. This’ll be fun for them. I should have thought of it myself.”
“Really?” His attitude floored her. How could he possibly be so generous and wonderful? “You’re not upset with me?”
“I’m not upset.” The corners of his mouth lifted in a wry smile. “Hell, I’m not sure why I was still keeping it secret anyway.”
She glanced at the photo on her desk. “It was private to you. I understand that. Some things are just better kept secret.”
That threw him. For the longest time he stared down at her, his expression so probing, Ashley looked away. He used the edge of a fist to nudge her face back up again.
“Ashley?”
She frowned at him.
“What secrets do you have?”
She tried to joke that off. “If I told you, they wouldn’t be secret any longer, would they?”
His annoyance was palpable. “I thought we were beyond this.”
Ashley put her arms around him and tucked her head under his chin. “Don’t get all surly. It’s not just my secret, but someone else’s, too.”
“Someone you care about?”
“Yes.”
“Someone you love?”
She nodded.
“One day you’ll tell me.”
Because she also loved him, Ashley smiled at the arrogant statement. “Yeah, probably.” To change the subject, she kissed his throat and whispered, “I was so looking forward to being with you again.”
Quinton crushed her close for a moment. “Me, too, honey.”
“You know…” She looked up at Quinton, saw the restrained lust in his expression, along with a good dose of tenderness and regret, and her plans got tossed out the window. “I can spare a few hours tonight if you and the boys don’t mind company.”
He held her back the length of his arms. “What time?”
“I don’t need to work at the restaurant tonight.” She had thought to use that time to finish a paper and study for the next exam, especially since she hadn’t studied this morning. But at that moment nothing seemed more important than being with Quinton. “My last class ends at three.”
He treated her to a kiss that set her insides all aflutter and had her almost ready to skip class after all.
Against her lips, he whispered, “I’ll pick you up.”
“ Ooooh ,” she teased. “In the Bentley?”
His smile was lazy and warm. “Of course. And this time you’ll be the driver.”
———
Ashley smiled as she steered the luxury car down the street toward Quinton’s driveway. The day had been more wonderful than she’d ever imagined. The kids were, without a doubt, a handful. Loud and boisterous, but also loving and hilarious. They’d ordered in pizza, watched a video, and shot baskets in the yard of the special housing where they currently resided.
Quinton had top-notch people supervising the boys throughout the day and tending to their needs. They were well schooled, cared for, comfortable, and safe.
But they went bananas when Quinton showed up.
Quinton’s home was on the way to hers, so he’d asked her to stop there. She had an hour before she had to be at work, and she couldn’t resist the chance to be alone with him, even for a short time.
“Stop here at the end of the driveway. I need to check the mail before we go in.”
“Okay.” She pulled the Bentley up close to the tall brick and stone masonry structure that housed his mailbox. A duplicate structure sat on the other side of the drive, only without the mailbox inside. In a tall dome shape and surrounded by flourishing greenery and fall flowers, they added a showy touch to the entrance of the drive. It struck Ashley funny that even Quinton’s mailbox seemed fancier than her home.
Quinton unhooked his seat belt, rolled down the window, and reached out far enough to loop a finger into the decorative fixture on the front of the box. He started to pull it open—and Ashley noticed the trampled plants around the base. She frowned, certain the mailman would have no need to walk on the landscaping.
Why then…
Everything clicked into place in a single heartbeat.
“ No !” Ashley yanked Quinton back, but she wasn’t fast enough.
The mailbox exploded with an ear-shattering boom, sending out a spray of hardened projectiles. The windshield cracked in several places, and debris shot in through the open passenger-door window. Ashley felt a stinging burn on the side of her neck and face. Fire flickered from inside the box, filling the air with swirling black smoke.
Because of the blast and the way she’d jerked him back, Quinton lost his balance. He landed half on Ashley, crushing her into the driver’s door.
Cursing, blood running down his face, he struggled to sit up. Ashley frantically threw the car into park.
Quinton shoved himself upright, and she moaned as a throbbing pain raced through her left arm.
“Ashley!” Twisting toward her, Quinton looked her over, smoothing her hair back. “Oh, Jesus. Ashley, honey, are you all right?”
Ashley blinked, trying to comprehend the situation.
“Ashley, answer me!”
She looked at him and nodded, doing her best to catch her breath. She was just so… shocked. Her ears still rang from the blast and the acrid scent of smoke burned her nostrils and lungs. Then she saw the blood from Quinton’s forehead and new panic set in. “Oh my God!”
He sounded harsh and angry as he touched her chin and tipped her face. “Don’t move, okay?”
“You’re bleeding!”
“I’m fine.” He caught her fluttering hand and gently controlled her. “I’m fine, honey, I swear. Now sit still. I have to call for an ambulance.”
An ambulance? Dear God. How badly was he hurt?
Numb, aching all over, Ashley sat there, and she knew Elton Pascal had done this. He wanted her, but because Denny and Quinton had her so well protected, he’d turned his attention to Quinton. Unfortunately, when she was with Quinton, the guards were off duty.
If she hadn’t noticed the signs of trespass, if she hadn’t pulled Quinton back in time, the explosion might have maimed him. Or killed him.
Bile rose in her throat, and she covered her mouth with a hand, swallowing hard. “I’m sorry.” Her whisper emerged so low, she didn’t think Quinton had heard her.
While lifting the hem of his T-shirt to his forehead to staunch the trickle of blood, he glanced her way with worry. He had the cell phone to his ear, explaining what had happened, but Ashley barely heard the words. She watched him and realized that she was being useless, that he was hurt, too, and still he took control.
She dragged a deep breath into her lungs, then another and another until the panic began to recede. Head wounds bled a lot. She knew that.
But she’d never seen Quinton bleed.
He could be hurt badly, but given how easily he moved and the clear way he spoke, his wounds were likely superficial. Realizing that did a lot to calm her.
Experimentally, she flexed her left arm. Ouch . Okay, so maybe she had fractured something when Quinton landed against her outstretched arms. A distal radius fracture would be the most likely. Not life threatening, but painful. It’d mean a cast, which would be a nuisance, but she could deal with it.
Her cheek and neck stung. Broken glass and pieces of metal were all around them. She couldn’t move without getting pinched or poked, but a quick exam of her hands and lower arms showed no serious injuries
She looked again at Quinton. Several small cuts oozed blood on his face, but other than the cut to his forehead, none of them were very deep.
“You’re going to need stitches,” she told him. “And if we keep sitting here, we’ll probably get more cuts from all the debris.”
But if they got out of the car, would Elton be waiting?
Q
uinton finished the call and turned to her again. His steely gaze went to her cheek. “Hang on, honey. An ambulance is on the way.” He unhooked her seat belt, settling the strap away from her with care.
“I’m okay,” she promised him, while scanning the area for any suspicious shadow in the form of a murderous worm. This was way beyond obnoxious phone calls. This showed Elton’s sick desperation.
But what if he hadn’t left any evidence? He was accused of killing two people with an impact bomb, but… would that be proof that he did this? Would the police blame Elton? Would they understand now just how far he’d go?
“Ashley, honey, listen to me. Something is jamming my door.” Quinton touched her hair, moving it back. He winced. “Will yours open?”
“I think I broke my wrist.” The pain had settled into a blunt, cold throb. “Can you reach around me and get the handle?”
He briefly closed his eyes, his face hard with rage and helplessness. But when he spoke, his tone was gentle and soft. “Yeah. Hold on, baby. I don’t want to hurt you.”
“You won’t.” She pressed back into the seat to give him room. He reached one long arm across her waist and shoved the door wide.
The beams from the Bentley’s headlights still shone across the yard, and as far as she could see, nothing moved except the drifting smoke. Keeping her arm tucked close to her stomach, Quinton’s hand on her right elbow to assist her, Ashley stepped out. She used care so that she didn’t accidentally grind against anything sharp in the seat.
Quinton was right behind her, his arm around her waist as if to support her. “Come on, honey. I want you to sit down.” He tried to guide her to the curb, and Ashley noticed that his hands shook.
She frowned at him. “If you’re shaking because of me, I really am fine. But if it’s because you’re hurt, then you need to sit down.”
His jaw worked, flexing as he locked his teeth. “I’m shaking because I want to kill him.”
The quiet, convicted rasp startled her. With the blood marring his face, and that particular tone, Quinton looked more than capable of taking Elton apart. “Oh, well, then. Me, too.”
Sirens split the night, and seconds later, the ambulance was there with two cruisers and a lot of confusion. Paramedics took one look at them and immediately went to work. Ashley found herself separated from Quinton and led to sit on the open back of the ambulance.
Quinton shrugged off the hands of the poor EMT who wanted to check his head. At least his anger reiterated his strength, comforting her on so many levels. If anything had happened to him…
“I’m fine,” Quinton insisted to the man. “It’s just a damn cut. Take care of her.” He nodded to Ashley, and the paramedic immediately switched gears, joining the female EMT who now wanted to usher Ashley into the ambulance.
“No, wait,” she said, but no one was really listening to her. “I’m okay,” she tried to tell them. “It’s just a simple break, that’s all.”
Quinton stopped the medics long enough to tip up her chin. He looked so severe, so enraged. “Your face is cut, honey.”
That startled her. She blinked. “It is?”
“Let them take care of you.”
Confused, she started to reach up, but Quinton caught her hand. “Shhh. It’s all right, Ashley.”
“I felt something hit my upper cheek and my neck, too.” She frowned and realized her face felt stiff. The way Quinton acted, she had no idea if her head was about to fall off. “Is it bad?”
Grim with resolve, his eyes blazing, Quinton shook his head. “No. You’ll be fine. I swear it.”
Never had she seen a man more pained. Her smile went crooked. “Well, I never doubted that I’d live. But you look a little unconvinced.”
A police officer approached, a dozen questions tripping off his tongue at once, trying to pull Quinton’s attention away from her.
“Go on,” Ashley told him. She wanted the cops to get started on collecting evidence as soon as possible before any more of it was destroyed by well-meaning people. “Don’t worry about me. I’ll get in the ambulance like a good girl.”
Quenton hesitated, so Ashley reasoned with him. “Elton might still be around. There could be tracks or fingerprints or… I don’t know. Elton could still be around here somewhere. Tell them everything now so they can start hunting for him.”
Quinton again touched her chin. “I’ll be right back.”
The EMT said, “We won’t leave without you.”
He nodded his thanks. While he answered the officer the best he could, the paramedics helped Ashley into the ambulance. They left the door open, though, and she could hear the officer speaking.
“We’ll have some experts take a look, but I think this was the work of a homemade bomb. Several in fact, to get that much of an explosion. You two are lucky you weren’t hurt worse. Even killed.”
No, Ashley thought, feeling ill again. Elton Pascal didn’t want her dead. He’d said she would be punished, and a quick death wasn’t on his agenda. This was a scare tactic.
And it worked.
Knowing he’d do this to Quinton, to the people she cared about, was the scariest thing imaginable.
To distract herself, she smiled at the female EMT carefully cleaning the blood off her face. “How bad is it?”
“You’ll be fine.”
Oh, for the love of… How many times did they think to tell her that?
“Right. Fine.” She leaned away from the woman’s busy hands. “But come on. Stitches? A scar? What?”
The EMT tried to go back to swabbing her face, but Ashley avoided her.
“I’m a nurse,” she lied. She wouldn’t graduate for a while yet. “Whatever it is, I can take it.”
The woman met her gaze, wavered, but finally gave in. “You’ll need stitches. I can’t say for sure, but as long as there’s no nerve or muscle damage, and you don’t get any infections, I think the scar should be minimal.”
“I remember something hitting me, but I don’t remember what. It’s a laceration?”
The EMT nodded. “Pretty deep, too. Something jagged must’ve caught you from the force of the blast. I’m not sure if it’s still embedded in there or not. There’s a lot of swelling…”
Just dandy. “I guess they can do some X-rays at the hospital.” Ashley leaned her head back and closed her eyes. “What about my neck? The same?”
“A deep scratch, that’s all. On your shoulder, too. I don’t think they’ll need stitches. They’ve already stopped bleeding.”
Bounding up into the ambulance, Quinton took a seat beside Ashley on the gurney. “Let’s go.” He’d retrieved her purse from the Bentley and she took it from him, clutching it in her lap with her good hand.
The doors closed and a moment later, the ambulance pulled away with sirens screeching and lights flashing.
Quinton now had a bandage on his head, most of the blood swabbed away. He sat rigid beside her, all but vibrating with fury.
“Your car?” she asked, wondering how much damage the Bentley had suffered.
At her query, he looked ready to combust. “I don’t give a fuck about the car.”
He was so distraught that Ashley couldn’t stand it. She turned her head toward him and said, “See, that’s the difference between us, Murphy. You can blow off the destruction to a car that costs more than most houses, but I’m already worrying about the work I might miss because of this mess.”
“Ashley?”
“What?”
“Don’t provoke me.”
She couldn’t help it; she laughed.
“Not now,” he added, ignoring her humor. “Not while I’m considering kidnapping you so I can keep you under lock and key.”
“Lock and key, huh?”
“Safe.”
“I hate to break it to you, Murphy, but it was your mailbox that exploded, not mine.”
“The bomb squad’s headed to your place right now to check out your mailbox, too.” He picked up her hand and carried it to his mouth
, pressing a firm kiss to her knuckles. His eyes closed, his jaw went taut. “If you moved in with me—”
“Whoa!” Moved in ? Where had that come from? “Are you in shock or something? You can’t be serious.”
The EMT pretended to do some reorganizing of her supplies, but Ashley caught her slight smile.
“Of course I’m serious.” Quinton was furious again. “If you lived with me, if you cooperated just a little bit, I could keep shit like this from happening!”
“Gee.” Ashley eyed him up and down. “That’s about the most romantic invitation to cohabitate that I think I’ve ever heard. I’m all aflutter. I don’t know what to say.”
For a second, Quinton’s expression remained frozen in harsh lines. He breathed hard, and his hold on her hand was bruising. Finally, he relaxed on a short laugh, closing his eyes again and muttering, “I am so goddamned sorry.”
She knew he wasn’t talking about his misguided invitation. “That’s my line, Murphy. Elton’s after me, not you. You’re nothing more than an innocent bystander.” Her arm really hurt now, and her head pounded, and she felt sick to her stomach. “But he failed this time because we’re both okay. So don’t make emotional declarations that you might later regret. All right?”
Ashley waited for his reaction to all she’d said, and she waited, and waited. She raised her brows. “Cat got your tongue?”
He shook his head. “No. I’ve just never heard you spout so much nonsense at one time before.”
“Nonsense?”
He patted her hand and gave her an insincere smile that reeked of resolve. “We’ll both get patched up, then go back to my place and get some sleep. In the morning we’ll talk about… everything.”
“So I’m sleeping over?”
“Yes.”
It went against her independent nature to admit it, but Ashley said, “I’m glad.” Then she leaned her head on Quinton’s strong, solid shoulder and drew from his strength—while wondering how she could possibly protect him when he was so determined to protect her instead.
Chapter 14
Clipboard and pen in hand, the emergency room doctor continued with her never-ending list of questions. “Is there a possibility you could be pregnant?”
