“About freaking time...your phone!” Daniel’s voice was broken by a bad connection. “Where the hell...been? Your sister...of her mind, worrying what hap—you. Which...upset Nicole and Alec’s...”
Jake stepped closer to the window, hoping for better reception. “I’ve been dealing with a little situation involving an escaped convict, no power and almost two feet of snow.”
“Escaped con— What the h—” Daniel said. “Do you need backup?”
Jake moved farther into the basement, trying the next window and the next. “I think I have things under control. Thanks anyway. I know better than to pull you or Alec away from your lovely ladies.”
He moved through a door, into a storage area at the back of the cellar, and his reception cleared marginally by the last window.
“Well, I owe you one...helping me get Nicole out of Colombia. If...change your mind, I’m a phone call away.”
“Thanks, man.”
“And I’m sorry about your dad.”
Jake’s heart seized. What did Daniel know? “Have you talked to my sister? Do you know my dad’s status?”
“I haven’t talked to her, but Alec has a couple times. He’s still in ICU from what I hear.”
Chelsea’s muffled voice drifted down the stairs. She sounded upset.
“I’ll be calling Michelle soon,” Jake said, moving back toward the bottom of the staircase to hear Chelsea better, “and I should be on the road a couple of hours from now. I just have to wrap up a few details here.”
He glanced at the workbench as he passed it. He still hadn’t located anything he could use to secure Brady.
“Jake!” The fear and desperation coloring Chelsea’s voice sent a tingle down Jake spine.
Muttering a curse under his breath, he darted toward the stairs. “I gotta go. Something’s wrong,” he told Daniel as he took the steps two at a time. “I may need that backup after all.”
* * *
Chelsea’s hands shook as she fought to get the cord off Brady’s neck. After convulsing for several terrifying seconds, he’d gone limp and motionless.
“Ohgodohgodohgod...don’t be dead,” she whispered, panic gripping her chest. She slid the clothesline off his throat and loosened the knot at his wrists enough to free his hands so she could roll him to his back. Putting one hand in front of his nose, she tried to determine if he was breathing. She didn’t feel any air moving out of his nose or mouth, and his eyes were mostly closed now. Next she palpated his carotid pulse, but her hands were shaking and her own heart was hammering so hard that she couldn’t tell whether he had a pulse.
“Jake!” she screamed again and scrambled mentally to recall her CPR training. Bending over Brady, she pressed her ear to his chest to listen and feel for his heartbeat.
The thump of footsteps hurrying up the basement stairs signaled Jake’s return.
But before she could do more than recognize the noise, Brady surged off the floor, knocking her backward on her butt. Chelsea screamed as the scene, which passed in seconds, unfolded like a slow-motion horror movie.
Brady lunged for the gun she’d set on the coffee table. Raised the pistol. Aimed for the basement door.
Jake appeared at the top of the stairs, his cell to his ear. A loud crack splintered the air, and Jake jerked, then stumbled backward, dropping his phone.
Brady fired again. And again. Drywall flew as those shots pocked the wall near the stairs.
Jolted from her shock, Chelsea sprang toward Brady. “No!” she yelled, throwing herself on his back and swinging at his gun arm.
Jake crashed against the wall behind him before losing his balance and toppling down the stairs, out of Chelsea’s line of sight. He’d left a smear of blood on the stairwell wall.
Icy fear clamped around her heart. “Jake!”
With an angry roar, Brady bucked, throwing her off him. All the air whooshed from her lungs as she crashed to the floor. She wheezed in vain, trying desperately to suck in the precious oxygen she needed to fuel her fight, keeping her eyes trained on Brady.
Snarling a cruel epithet at her, he swung the weapon toward her head. Reacting more than choosing her next move, she rolled to the left, feeling the heat of a bullet streak past her ringing ears. As Brady clambered to his feet and took aim again, Chelsea swept her leg toward him as hard as she could. Her foot hit him in the back of his knees, and his legs buckled. Brady fumbled for his balance, juggled the gun.
Seizing her chance, Chelsea bolted for the stairs. She gasped for a breath as she staggered in a zigzagging path toward the basement door. Another shot whizzed past her and splintered the wood frame of the cellar door.
Grabbing the doorknob as she darted past, Chelsea slammed the heavy basement door and slid the first of three barrel bolts into the lock position. With trembling hands, she fought the other bolts into place. When a bullet slammed into the heavy door, making it shudder, she dropped to a crouch, then scrambled down the steps, out of the line of fire.
Jake lay at the bottom of the stairs, clutching his shoulder, his face twisted in a mask of pain. Blood bloomed on his shirt near his collarbone.
“Jake!” she cried, hurrying to his side. “How bad are you hurt?” She started unbuttoning his shirt and carefully tugged the fabric back to examine his wound.
“Can you...lock that door?” Jake asked. His voice sounded weak.
“Already did. We installed slide bolts to secure the door in case of tornado.” She gave a nervous scoff. “As if a few bolts would make a difference against wind strong enough to drive a straw through a tree. But they made my mom feel safer.”
He groaned and shut his eyes.
“Do you think you broke any bones when you fell? Are you shot anywhere else? Oh, God! Tell me what to do!” Her words rushed out as panic spiked her pulse.
Jake caught her hand, squeezed. “Breathe.”
His voice sounded strained, full of pain, and her worry ramped higher. “You can’t breathe?”
“I mean...you. Breathe. Calm down.” He drew a ragged breath as if to prove he could and clutched her hand tighter. “I need you...not to fall apart...on me.”
She bobbed her head. Tears pricked her eyes and blurred her vision. She forced herself to inhale deeply and blow it out slowly. “There. I promise not to fall apart, but—” her fingers curled into his shirt “—I need you not to die on me.”
Even though his brows were furrowed in pain, his cheek twitched. “Deal. Now...we gotta find something clean...to stuff in the bullet hole. Stop the bleeding. I think the bullet passed clean through. So you’ll...have to pack the exit wound, too.”
With a grunt, he rolled onto his side, and sure enough, a bloody exit wound marred the back of his shoulder near his armpit. Nausea roiled in Chelsea’s gut. Not because of the blood—she saw enough of that on the job at the blood center—but because of how close she’d come to losing Jake. That scared the hell out of her because, deal or no deal, he could still die. Blood loss, infection, dehydration—the enemies were numerous, and it would be her job to keep him alive.
The doorknob at the top of the stairs rattled, and the door shuddered as Brady crashed into it, trying to get through. “A locked door ain’t gonna stop me! You’re dead, cowboy! You and the girlie are not going to turn me in!”
More gunshots blasted at the top of the stairs, the bullets slamming into the locked basement door. Adrenaline, already stringing her tight, kicked her blood pressure even higher.
Bullets hammered the door, and splinters of wood sprinkled on them from the top of the stairs. She needed to move Jake out of harm’s way, needed to stop his bleeding, needed to pull herself together if she was going to keep Jake alive.
Using her adrenaline-fueled strength, she gripped Jake under his arms and dragged him back from the foot of the steps, toward a pile of dirty laundry heaped on the floor next to the washing machine. Jake cried out in pain as she moved him, his face wrenched in a grimace.
“Sorry, sorry, sorry,” she repeated t
hrough her tears, her stomach rebelling at the notion of the pain he had to be in. Once she’d situated him on the bed of dirty clothes and spread his coat over his lower body for warmth, she scanned the basement, her hands shaking and her heart racing. Surely she could find something clean enough to tend his wounds.
Her gaze hopped from the workbench to the dusty shelving, back to the dirty laundry and...laundry!
She spun toward the dryer and snatched open the door. The load of her delicates she’d washed the night before the snowstorm hit was still waiting to be folded. Chelsea plunged her hand in the pile and pulled out the first thing she grabbed: a cotton jogging bra.
She bit at the back seam, chewing through a few threads, then yanked hard to rip the bra into usable pieces. “Jake Connelly—” she knelt beside him and rolled the first piece of bra into a tight plug “—you are going to owe me a new wardrobe of bras when this mess is over.” Her voice warbled as she worked, her hands unsteady. “You already destroyed my best underwire, and now my favorite sports bra is going to stop up your bullet holes.”
His gaze rose to meet hers. The pain and fading light in his eyes scared her spitless.
“Bra shopping... It’s a...date.”
Her fingers trembled as she poked the rolled fabric into the gaping wound in his back. “At Neiman’s...”
He grimaced and growled in pain, and she swallowed the last of her teasing parry.
“Stay with me, Jake. Please...”
He tugged on the coat she’d spread over him, grappling with it until he withdrew a pistol from the pocket. He shoved it at her. “Keep this close. Just in case.”
“Oh, Texas...” she muttered, her gut flip-flopping. If she never saw a gun again in her life, it’d be too soon.
“Two shots left,” he rasped, curling her hand around the weapon and drilling her with a piercing stare. “Make ’em count.”
“Don’t shoot till I see the whites of his eyes?” she quipped feebly, her stomach rebelling. She sucked in a slow breath and swallowed hard to keep her lunch down.
“You’ll know when. Just aim and...squeeze the trigger.”
She exhaled through pursed lips and set the gun aside. “Right.”
“Now...my phone...” he said, his voice growing thready.
His phone? Chelsea’s hands stilled as she flashed back to the seconds right before Jake was shot. He’d held his cell phone to his ear when he appeared at the top of the stairs. She swiped at the tears blurring her vision. Heart racing with new hope, she glanced toward the foot of the steps where Jake had fallen. Nothing.
The stairs. Nada. Where could his phone have landed?
When he tried to move and groaned in pain, she abandoned her search for his phone and pressed a hand to his uninjured shoulder, holding him down. “Whoa, Spy Guy. Lie still. The more you move, the more you’ll bleed. I’ll find the phone once I get you fixed up.”
“Daniel...”
Chelsea frowned. “Who is Daniel?”
“On the phone...can help...”
She rolled a piece of her torn bra in a tight plug and poked it in the seeping wound in his shoulder. When he cried out in pain again, she winced in sympathy and remorse. “Sorry, I know it hurts, but I have to.”
He met her eyes and nodded. “I know. Do it.”
She tried again to plug the bullet hole, her heart raw as he gritted his teeth against the pain. Dear God, this was her fault. If she hadn’t fallen for Brady’s act, if she hadn’t untied the cords binding Brady, the wretched man wouldn’t have shot Jake, wouldn’t have them trapped in the basement....
You’d only be in the way.
Swallowing the lump in her throat, she struggled for her composure. She’d promised not to fall apart and, damn it, she wouldn’t. She owed Jake that much and a whole lot more. Maybe if she could distract him... “Who is Daniel?”
“Former member...of my black ops team.” Jake drew a shallow breath and screwed up his face in agony as she rolled him on his back to address the entry wound. “Got injured. Then engaged. He’s retired, but he’s still...one of the best.”
Chelsea finished packing the exit wound with strips of fabric from her bra, and only then did Jake’s explanation replay in her head and sink in. “Black ops? So...that’s what you do?”
His gaze darted to hers as if he hadn’t realized what he’d said.
She twitched a smile. “Don’t worry, your secret is safe with me.” She lifted her eyebrows as she folded a camisole from the dryer into a small square to hold against Jake’s wound. “As if anyone would believe I was rescued by a black ops agent who looks like Chris Hemsworth and kisses like—”
She stopped herself, avoiding Jake’s eyes. Her skin flashed hot remembering the soul-shaking caress of his lips on hers. They hadn’t had a chance to talk about their kiss. What it meant. Assuming it meant anything to him. He’d said he was just acting on an impulse. Maybe that was all it was. Probably that was all. She didn’t dare believe it was more, couldn’t risk involving her heart when she knew he’d be leaving her as soon as—
“Kisses like?” he prompted, his voice still a rasp.
She forced a teasing grin. “Digging for a compliment, Spy Guy? Oops, my bad. Black Ops Guy.” Her voice trembled with the unspent adrenaline still roaring through her, and her hands shook as she pressed the camisole firmly against the gunshot wound. “I’ve heard of black ops. Real top secret. Very dangerous. All off-the-record for deniability. Sometimes sketchy legality...”
She’d known for days that Jake did dangerous work, but somehow knowing the volatile nature of his missions, the secrecy surrounding his work, the danger involved, sent a shudder to her core. The thoughtful, charming hero she’d gotten to know the past few days didn’t jibe with her conceptions of a black ops soldier—ruthless, lethal, hard-edged.
He knocked her hand aside as he took over holding the camisole compress against his wound. “We save lives. Stop terrorists.” He dragged in another shallow breath. “If we cross a line...the ends justify...the means.”
Her mouth dried, and an apology rose in her throat. She hadn’t meant to imply she questioned Jake’s ethics. “Jake, I...”
Before she could put together a coherent response, he hitched his head toward the stairs again. “I’ve got this. Find my phone.”
She sat back on her heels, wiping her hands on the khaki pants she’d borrowed from Mrs. Noble’s closet. Blood smeared on the legs of the pants. Jake’s blood. If Jake died...
Her stomach rolled, but she battled down the flutter of panic that tried to return. Keep it together. For Jake.
Pushing to her feet, she put a lock on the nerves that could only hamper her ability to think, to facilitate their escape, to help pull Jake through his medical emergency. He was counting on her, and she wouldn’t fail him.
She searched the area at the base of the steps, then up the stairs themselves. Finding nothing, she walked up the unfinished stairs, slowly, peering through the open back of each step to the basement floor below. Finally, as she neared the top, she found a piece of the phone’s casing, the cover to the battery compartment, in a crack between the stairs and the wall. Peering through the gap at the back of the unfinished step she spotted Jake’s phone below her in a dark corner of the basement floor. In two more pieces.
“Oh, no.” Her heart sank as she scurried back down and retrieved the parts. With the compartment door broken off, the battery had fallen out of the cell phone, and the screen had a large forked crack. “It’s broken.”
Chelsea carried the pieces back to Jake’s makeshift bed on the pile of laundry and showed him the damage. “I can try to put the battery back in, but based on the crack in the screen...”
“Try it. Even if we can’t get a call out—” he paused and inhaled carefully again “—it might still emit a GPS signal.”
“What good would that do us?”
“Daniel.”
“Your former black ops teammate?”
He nodded. “I had him
on the line...when I was shot. He’ll come. Or send help.”
Chelsea straightened her shoulders, the knot in her chest loosening. “You’re sure?”
She saw the subtle flicker of doubt that passed over his face. The merest of hesitations before his features firmed with confidence. “Daniel won’t let us down.”
She wrapped her fingers around Jake’s wrist and held his gaze. “Maybe we should make a plan of our own, a strategy we can start working on now. Just in case.”
Jake’s jaw firmed, and he nodded his agreement. What went unspoken between them was a truth that chilled her to the bone.
Jake’s friends might come to their aid. But in his condition, Jake didn’t have time to wait.
Chapter 13
Brady glared at the bullet-pocked basement door and lowered the smoking gun in his hand. He’d fired at the locked door until the pistol answered his trigger pulls with an impotent click. He hurled the empty gun aside, frustration and fury boiling over.
Stupid, stupid to let the cowboy sneak up on him! Even if he had thought the two were dead, he should have been paying more attention, been prepared for someone to approach the house.
Brady returned to the living room, kicking at the ropes the cowboy had tied him with, and dropped onto the couch to brood. To plan.
If Cowboy and Chelsea had made it here from the Cadillac, it stood to reason the roads were passable now. And if the roads were plowed, did that mean the cops had found the Cadillac? The car had been shot up in his firefight with Cowboy, and he’d bled at the scene. The snow should have covered the stains on the road, but the car floor and backseat would have been covered in his bloody DNA.
Even if the cops hadn’t connected him to the abandoned Cadillac, had Cowboy and Chelsea found a way to place a 9-1-1 call before busting in on him today?
Brady’s pulse hammered. Cops could be converging on this house even now. He needed to move. He needed to dig out Cowboy’s truck and get the hell out of Dodge while he could.
Damn it!
Brady snatched up the men’s coat he’d taken from Chelsea’s front closet and limped toward the back door. His tussle with Cowboy had his leg throbbing again, and Brady clenched his teeth in disgust. He’d really love to plug that bastard for screwing up his getaway and giving him this frickin’ gash on his leg.
Cowboy's Texas Rescue Page 14
