Moving Target

by Desiree Holt

  “Hurt?”

  “He’ll be fine. I promise.”

  A hand grasped hers on the ride to the hospital. And then she faded, the shot they gave her dropping her into a blessed oblivion.

  ****

  Kate felt the movement of the gurney along the halls, the slap slap slap of the rubber wheels on tile, the thudding of feet in surgical booties.

  “Kate, can you hear me?”

  “Mmm?” She was trying to swim up through inky waters, but something heavy kept pushing her down. She tried to breathe, and a pain so sharp it took away her breath altogether stabbed at her.

  “Kate, remember me? Dr. DeWitt?” He was leaning over her, his mouth close to her ears. All around him nurses worked to complete their Strikes as his patient was wheeled toward the surgical suites. He took one of her hands in his. “If you can hear me, squeeze my hand.”

  She gripped his hand as hard as she could.

  “Good, good. Listen to me. You’ve been shot again and done some damage to your previous wounds. We have to do some quick repair work on you. Do you understand?”

  Another squeeze.

  “We ran a full blood panel, something we always do even if you’ve just been a patient. Things can change, you know.” Pause. “We found elevated levels of hormones. There’s a good possibility you’re pregnant.”

  Pregnant? Really? Happiness flashed through her. She was having Quinn’s baby? Then, as fast as it came, the feeling dissipated. What if Quinn didn’t want it? What if… “Quinn…”

  “He’s being taken care of. They’re removing a bullet from his shoulder, but he’ll be fine.”

  She forced out the words. “Hope so.” She tried for another breath. “Don’t tell…”

  “You don’t want him to know?”

  “Not…yet…please.”

  DeWitt shrugged. “It’s your choice, of course. Well, we’ll take good care of you upstairs and be extra careful.”

  She squeezed his hand again. “Thanks.”

  ****

  Quinn was still flat on his back in Trauma Three when Jake walked in. A massive bandage covered his right shoulder. He glanced at Jake.

  “Come to claim the body?”

  “Come to beat it back to life. How’s he doing, doc?”

  The ER doctor finishing up with him looked at Jake. “He refused anything but a local anesthetic. He’s a wild man, even with all this pain. He absolutely has to stay here overnight. I don’t know what to do short of handcuffing him to the bed.”

  Quinn shook his head. “Not going to.”

  Jake moved to where Quinn could see him better. “Kate’s in good hands, Ace. She’ll be fine. DeWitt just took her upstairs again. He said if you behaved yourself and stayed right here, he’d find us and let us know when the surgery’s over.”

  “Go…check on her.” The words felt as if he’d dragged them from the bottom of a barrel. “After.”

  “Okay. You’ll be able to. But you won’t do her any good if you kill yourself being stupid.”

  “Nolan?” he asked.

  “Unfortunately not dead.” Nick said, walking into the room at that moment and standing on the other side of the bed. “In the prison ward at University Hospital awaiting his own surgery. If I hadn’t wanted him so badly for trial I’d have blown his head off.” His face was twisted with pain. “Quinn, I don’t even know where to begin to apologize for this. I can’t—”

  Quinn made a feeble hand wave at him. “Happens. Do…your best but shit happens.”

  He watched Jake exchange a look with Nick.

  “Can you hang out here a while with me until we get news of Kate? This idiot thinks he’s going to get up and go looking for her.”

  “It’s the least I can do.” Nick’s eyes were bloodshot, and he looked as if he’d stared death in the face, but he had pulled himself together. “Why don’t I go get us some coffee? Can the walking wounded have any?”

  The nurse adjusting the IV drip in Quinn’s arm nodded. “We’d just as soon he let this medication work on him, but with all he’s been through, I don’t guess a cup of coffee will do him any harm. If he’s still awake to drink it.”

  Quinn rolled his head to look at Jake as soon as the nurse had left. When he spoke, his words were slurred. “I have to go home. Yank this damn needle out.”

  He reached for where the IV needle was taped to the back of his hand.

  Jake knocked his arm away. “Are you crazy? They just dug around in your shoulder. You really ought to let them keep you here tonight.”

  Quinn shook his head. “Have…to get home.”

  “I thought you wanted to see Kate? Take a little nap, and by then, she should be in recovery.”

  He closed his eyes. “You…take care of her. I’m…poison. Just wanted…to see her…myself. ’Sall.” Even saying the words, he felt as if a knife had carved a hole in his heart.

  “What the hell are you talking about?”

  Quinn made a supreme effort to rally and get his words out. “I…promised to take care of her. Keep her safe. Then I let her get shot, kidnapped, and shot again. Me, the big protector.”

  He should have been the one it all happened to. She was better off without him, even if letting her go was destroying him.

  “Shut up,” Jake ordered, worry lining his face. “Quinn, you look like shit. I’m calling the nurse back in.”

  “No.” His eyelids fluttered shut, but he forced them back up. “Promised her, Jake. Made her a promise and look…what happened. Why would she even want anything to do with me? I’m better off out of her life. I can’t keep anyone safe. Ever.”

  Jake stared at him. “That is just so much bullshit. I don’t even want to hear it.”

  The door opened, and Nick walked in carrying a cardboard tray with three cups of coffee. He handed the cups around, and Quinn roused enough to take a healthy swallow of his, but Jake grabbed the cup as it started to fall. In seconds, he was asleep.

  When Quinn awoke, for a moment he was disoriented. He had slept but was still edgy and unsettled.

  “Nick.” His throat felt as if he’d swallowed nails, and he had difficulty swallowing.

  “Yeah, buddy?” Nick was there in an instant.

  “Need you to drive me home.” Nick didn’t respond so Quinn looked at Jake. “I guess he won’t do it.”

  “You’re damn right—” Jake began.

  “Home?” Nick stared at Quinn. “Are you crazy?”

  Quinn sat up gingerly, testing his shoulder and wincing involuntarily. “Yes, home. Hand me my shirt.”

  “You’re insane,” Nick told him. “You’re in no shape to go anywhere. And what about Kate? An hour ago you were ready to punch out anyone who wouldn’t let you see her.”

  “Had…time to think. You…check her.” He had difficulty getting the words out.

  Jake looked at Nick. “The medication must have addled his brain. Now he’s got this dumbass idea that all this is his fault and she’s better off with him out of her life.”

  Damn right.” Yet the thought of cutting her out of his life nearly split his heart in two. A pain such as he hadn’t felt in a long time threatened to overwhelm him, smacking into him like a hard body blow.”

  “Don’t tell me he wants to go crawl into his cave again.” Jake looked at Quinn. “Dumbass.”

  “My…choice,” Quinn insisted and started to pull on the tape over the IV needle.

  “Wait, will you?” Jake grabbed his hand and reached for the call button. “At least let the nurse do it so you don’t cause yourself any more damage.”

  But the pain from the intravenous needle was nothing compare to the emotional pain that invaded his entire body. He was sick with it, consumed by it, knowing how bleak his future was going to be.

  When the nurse came into the room, she stared at Quinn first, then gave Nick and Jake a dirty look.

  “Out,” Quinn told her. “I want out. Right now.”

  She frowned. “You’re not in much shape to be leaving.
”

  “Don’t care. Have to leave.”

  At last, she just shrugged her shoulders and set about disconnecting the IV. She placed a bandaid over the place where the needle had been inserted.

  “Try not to kill yourself,” she told Quinn.

  If only.

  “The doctor left a form for you to sign yourself out Against Medical Advice if you insisted,” she went on. “I’ll get it. Then you’re free to go.”

  Quinn scratched his name on the clipboard the nurse brought back, then inched his shirt on with Jake’s reluctant help.

  “I’m going home.” He groaned again, and his words were slurring. “You can take me, or I’ll figure out how to get there myself.”

  Jake exchanged a glance with Nick, then nodded. “Okay. If that’s what you want. You sure can’t go anyplace by yourself.”

  “And can you please just play chauffeur and keep your mouth shut?”

  The nurse had given him a prescription to fill for pain meds, but he didn’t think there was a pill in the world that could cure what was wrong with him. The light had left his life, the only thing that had brought him to life again. He closed his eyes, and Kate’s face swam before his eyes, her gorgeous eyes filled with love for him.

  That love had nearly gotten her killed. She was much better off without him. But her laughter wouldn’t be echoing in his house any longer. He’d never feel her warm body cuddled up to him in bed again. Never cradle her breast in his palm as they slept or feel his cock harden against the curve of her ass. Never be able to sink himself into the lushness of her warmth.

  Too bad the bullet had missed vital organs. The shooter would have done him a favor if he’d killed him, because his life was never going to be worth living again.

  He leaned his head back against the seat and gave himself over to the tears coursing down his cheeks.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Kate looked up as the door to her room opened and Jake and Nick walked in. The heavy bandages were weighing her down, and the beeping of the machines drove her mad, but she was sitting up in bed. And no matter how bad she might look, she was wide awake and worried.

  “Where is he?” she demanded. “He’s hurt worse than you told me, isn’t he? I want the truth.”

  Jake walked to the side of the bed and kissed her cheek. “He’s a little banged up, but otherwise fine. He’s home.”

  “Home?” Her eyes widened. “Why isn’t he here?” When no one said anything, a sick feeling crawled up from her stomach. Something was very wrong.

  Nick cleared his throat. “Kate, we have something we need to tell you. We don’t understand it any more than you will, but here’s how it is.”

  They told her what Quinn had said, and why he wasn’t in her room, sitting next to her. And wasn’t likely to be.

  She just stared at them as they talked as pain rose through her body that beat any caused by the bullet and the surgery. She was afraid her heart would crack in two. But that was suddenly replaced by anger.

  “What? Is he crazy?” A heavy breath rasped out of her lungs and she began coughing.

  Jake pressed the call button for the nurse while Nick supported Kate with his hand and tried to prevent her from choking.

  “What are you men doing to this woman?” the nurse demanded as she stormed in. “My God, she’s not twenty-four hours out of surgery.”

  “We know,” Jake answered. “We just had to…give her some news that wasn’t too pleasant.”

  “I’m calling DeWitt. She doesn’t look too good.” The door swished shut behind her.

  “How dare he leave me like that?” Even as weak as she felt, she knew they could hear the anger in her voice. “Doesn’t he owe me an explanation?”

  “Kate,” Nick began.

  “Wait.” She let out a ragged breath. “He got hurt because of me. That’s why he left, isn’t it. I told him this was dangerous. That’s why I didn’t want him involved.”

  She blinked at the tears crowding her eyes, trying to hold them back, but a sob wrenched itself from her body and the tears streaked down her cheeks.

  Dr. DeWitt breezed in at that exact moment, the nurse behind him. He checked Kate over, gave some orders to the nurse, then turned to the two men.

  “All right. What the hell is going on here?”

  Uncomfortable with what he had to say, Nick explained the situation.

  “I’d think Miss Griffin might have something to say about that,” DeWitt said.

  The nurse returned with a hypodermic and injected something into Kate’s IV line.

  DeWitt picked up one of her hands with his. “Just try to relax, Kate. This will make you drowsy. You don’t need to put stress on yourself this soon out of surgery.”

  “But—”

  “No buts.”

  She didn’t want to sleep. She wanted to get out of bed, crawl if she had to, find Nick, and kick some sense into his thick head. How dare he do this? He’d told her he loved her. Made incredible love to her. They had created a child together. What the hell was he doing walking away from her?

  Now she knew what the term heartache really meant. But it was laced with anger at Quinn’s thickheadedness and frustration with the futility of the situation. How could she get through to him? How could she live the rest of her life without him? The bed would be as empty as his future. She wondered if a broken heart ever healed.

  She wanted him to slip into bed with her, hold her against his body, tell her everything was wonderful and they had a great future waiting for them. But when she reached out to grab him, there was nothing but emptiness…and the pain in her heart that threatened to destroy her.

  ****

  When DeWitt told Kate she was ready to be discharged from the hospital as long as she had someone with her, she didn’t know where she was supposed to go. The only place she knew was Quinn’s, and apparently, he didn’t want her.

  “All taken care of,” when she asked Kane Barton about it. “I’m moving you into one of the safe houses we keep, along with Sharon Langford and two agents to guard you.”

  They used three cars to do it, each of them switching direction back and forth to confuse anyone who might be trying to follow them.

  Sharon grinned when Kate finally walked in the door. “This time I’m chaining you to the furniture.”

  “I don’t think you’ll have much to worry about,” Kate told her in a quiet voice. “No one will be trying to break me out again.”

  Trying to hold in the tears that always seemed to be ready to spill, she let Sharon lead her to the bedroom where she’d be sleeping.

  “I did some shopping for you,” Sharon told her, pointing out the packages on the bed. “At least enough to tide you over until I can get you to store.”

  “Thank you. Really. Would you think me rude if I said I’d just like to lie down.”

  She tried to ignore the sympathetic look on the other woman’s face.

  DeWitt had confirmed the pregnancy before she left the hospital and made an appointment for her with an obstetrician. Two days later Sharon drove her to see the doctor and then to get her prescriptions filled. She forced herself to eat because of the baby and to begin an exercise routine. She walked around the backyard, swallowing tears because it reminded her of the walks she and Quinn had taken at the cabin. She made herself get in bed early each night, even though she was a long time falling asleep, knowing she needed the rest.

  All the media was full of the story, and she couldn’t turn on the television without seeing it on one channel or another. Jake came by with the latest newspapers for her to read.

  “They’re calling it the biggest cartel takedown in ten years,” he told her.

  “Is…Is everyone still in jail?” She was almost afraid to ask.

  “You betcha. The judge denied bail, and they’re still screaming. They’ve got enough lawyers to fill the entire courtroom.”

  “At least they can’t get to me.”

  “Oh, honey.” Jake dropped onto the
couch next to her. “They’ll never get to you. They’ll be lucky if they ever smell fresh air again.”

  Kate’s eyes dropped to her hands that were fiddling with the bed covers. “You know, when Quinn taught me to use that gun, I wasn’t sure I’d be able to handle it if I actually had to shoot someone.”

  “Most people have a hard time dealing with it,” Jake told her. “It’s not unusual. Even cops sometimes need counseling to get past it.” He paused. “I could ask DeWitt to recommend someone for you to talk to if you like.”

  She sighed. “No, not really. Sometimes I have flashbacks and I feel physically ill, but I seem to be dealing with it a lot better than I expected. Am I terrible if I say shooting Peter gave me great satisfaction?”

  Jake shook his head and smiled. “I’d say he deserved it. Sometimes ordinary people are forced to do extraordinary things way out of their comfort zone. Let it rest, Kate. You did the right thing.”

  He continued to stop by every two or three days, but it was hard to make conversation. They were both aware of the elephant in the room crowding them.

  She had avoided the subject of Quinn, but finally, she asked, “How’s he doing?”

  Jake sighed. “Okay, I guess. No one’s seen or heard from him. I’m hoping he was smart enough to make his follow up appointment for his shoulder wound.”

  Kate felt tears dripping down her face again. “I just don’t understand. Why can’t he at least come to see me, talk to me? We have to hash this out.” She plucked a tissue from her pocket and wiped her nose. “Maybe he decided he doesn’t love me after all.”

  “That’s a bunch of bull. I’ve never seen him this wild about anyone. Not even Lisa, God forgive me for saying that.”

  “Then he has to talk to me,” she protested. “At least give me a chance to have my say. If he blames me, I can certainly understand. But none of this was his fault. None of it.”

  “I’ll do my best, sweetheart. But you know what a stubborn man he is. He’ll just hide up there killing himself with guilt.”

  “Thanks, Jake. And thanks for coming by.”

  She got up and walked him to the door, but as he was about to open it, she put a hand on his arm. It was time to play her trump card. She’d wanted Quinn to come to her without it, but he hadn’t left her any choice.