If so, then all of this had obviously been premeditated.
“That’s why I followed her when she started driving out here toward your place,” Cash added. “I figured she’d try to kill you.”
Too bad Cash hadn’t been able to stop her.
“Put. Down. Your. Gun.” Dr. Farris’s teeth were clenched when she threatened Brandon.
Willa didn’t want him to drop the gun so she tried to help. It was obvious the doctor was far from being calm and in control. Her hands were shaking, and she looked to be on the verge of killing them all.
“The gunman in the lab wanted me to tamper with some DNA files,” Willa said. It worked. The doctor went still. “It was the DNA taken from beneath Jessie Beecham’s fingernails the night he was murdered.”
That last part was a guess. But it was obviously a good one because Dr. Farris groaned softly. “You do remember,” she mumbled. Now, there was sadness, maybe even regret, in her voice. “The DNA would have sent me to jail for murder. Because it was my skin tissue beneath Jessie’s nails. He scratched me, and I didn’t have time to clean him up.”
“You killed Jessie Beecham,” Willa mumbled. The next question was why, but Willa didn’t get a chance to ask her that.
A weary sigh left the doctor’s mouth, and she loosened the grip she had around Willa’s neck. Since she wasn’t watching Cash, Willa hoped the man wasn’t so injured that he was unable to do something to help.
Without warning, the doctor pulled the trigger.
The sound blasted through the night, and Willa braced herself to die.
But the bullet slammed into the ground next to her. In the same motion, she swung the gun back to Brandon. “Put down your weapon, or I’ll kill you both right now.”
Brandon stared at the woman. And then he shook his head and cursed.
He dropped the gun.
Willa’s heart dropped with it.
That gun was the only thing protecting them, but Brandon had had no choice. Willa didn’t know the doctor very well, but she could tell from the woman’s tone that she wasn’t bluffing. Of course, Dr. Farris intended to kill them anyway so this would only give them a few more seconds at best.
“I won’t go to jail for killing Jessie,” the doctor said in an almost whisper. “The man was scum and deserved to die.”
Maybe. But now, the doctor was apparently willing to keep on killing.
“I’m sorry,” Dr. Farris added.
Everything happened fast. Practically a blur. Dr. Farris lifted her hand, aimed her gun back at Cash. She fired. Two shots. Both slammed into something.
Cash, probably.
The doctor didn’t waste even a second. She took aim at Brandon. She was going to fire. Willa had no doubt about that. The doctor was going to shoot Brandon at point-blank range, and he was helpless, standing there, because he couldn’t risk coming at the doctor and hurting Willa.
But Willa could do something.
Yes, it was a risk. Anything was at this point. But she couldn’t just stand there and let Brandon die.
Willa gathered the air into her lungs and let out the loudest yell she could manage. She threw all of her weight to the left, away from the doctor. The jarring motion worked because Dr. Farris’s arm snapped back, releasing the grip she had on Willa’s neck. At first, Willa wasn’t sure why that had happened.
Then, she saw Brandon.
He had lunged across the space that separated him from the doctor. He was obviously trying to tackle her before she got off another shot.
But he was too late.
The blast, loud and thick, tore through the night.
Everything seemed to freeze, and the images clicked through her head as if someone was snapping pictures. Willa saw Brandon slam into Dr. Farris, and they both flew backward, tumbling onto the ground.
Then, Willa saw the blood.
It was everywhere. On Brandon. On Dr. Farris. Even in the evening light, she could see it on both their clothes.
“Brandon!” Willa called out. He had to be all right. He just had to be. She couldn’t lose him.
She scrambled across the yard toward the scuffle. Brandon had the doctor in a fierce grip, his left hand locked around her arm, and his right hand gripped her weapon. And she was fighting back. Though not with much strength.
Willa soon saw why.
Behind Brandon and Dr. Farris, Cash was sitting up, and there was blood all over the front of his shirt. No doubt where Dr. Farris had shot him. He had a gun. The gun that the doctor had knocked from Willa’s hand. And judging from the angle of the barrel, he had fired directly at Dr. Farris.
But Brandon had also been in that line of fire.
For one terrifying moment, Willa thought Cash might fire again. At her or at Brandon. But he simply gave a satisfied nod before he collapsed, the gun falling to his side.
Cash might be dead. That registered in Willa’s mind. But she couldn’t go to him until she helped Brandon. She couldn’t let Dr. Farris use that gun to kill him.
Willa reached out to latch on to the doctor’s arm so she could help drag the woman away from Brandon. But the arm she held was limp and lifeless.
Willa’s gaze flew to Brandon. To his face. To his body. Yes, there was blood. But when he stood, she realized he hadn’t been shot. Dr. Farris had been. Cash’s bullet had taken out a killer.
And Brandon was safe.
He was safe.
The tears came, burning hot in her eyes, and Willa made it to him in one step. Brandon pulled her warm and deep into his arms and held on.
Chapter Eighteen
Brandon glanced at his watch. It was still five minutes until midnight. Five minutes until it was officially Christmas Day.
Not that they would go anywhere to celebrate.
He didn’t intend to leave the hospital until Cash was out of surgery. After all, Cash had probably saved their lives, and Brandon wanted to thank his old friend. However, that didn’t mean Willa had to be stuck in an uncomfortable chair in the waiting room.
“Sheila said she could drive you to her place here in town so you can get some sleep,” Brandon reminded Willa. It’d been a generous offer from his deputy, but both Sheila and Pete were probably reeling from everything that had happened.
Brandon certainly was.
Judging from Willa’s too-pale face and trembling hands, she was as well.
“No thanks,” she answered. “I’d rather wait here with you until the doctor gives us an update on Cash.”
Since Cash had already been in surgery for hours, Brandon had no idea how much longer their wait would be. So he slipped his arm around her and eased her head onto his shoulder. Maybe she would at least grab a nap.
Or not.
Her head came right back up, and her eyes met his. “Dr. Farris deserved what she got.”
“Yeah.” Brandon didn’t dispute that. The woman had tried to commit premeditated murder, and from what he’d been able to figure out from the notes and emails that SAPD had found on the doctor’s computer, she’d taken plenty of steps to do just that.
Thank God she hadn’t succeeded.
But not for lack of trying.
In addition to hiring Martin Shore to find and kill Willa, she had spied on Cash’s computer to find the location of the safe house where Willa and he had been attacked. Cash had been right about that. He’d also been right about the doctor planting a tracking device on Brandon’s vehicle. And to insure that Brandon’s deputies wouldn’t respond to his call for backup, the doctor had planted a jammer at the sheriff’s office where the deputies were wrapping up Shore’s last attack and death. The jammer had prevented their cell phones from ringing. She had even drugged his dogs so they wouldn’t alert anyone that she was on his property.
Dr. Farris had been thorough. And in doing so, she had created plenty of future nightmares. Brandon would never forget how close he had come to losing Willa and the baby.
Brandon heard the footsteps in the corridor and got to his feet. H
e also tried to brace himself for the worst. Cash had not only taken three bullets, he’d lost a lot of blood.
But it wasn’t the doctor. It was Pete.
“Merry Christmas,” the deputy greeted, though it wasn’t very cheery. The fatigue was heavy in Pete’s weathered eyes.
“Merry Christmas,” Brandon and Willa mumbled back.
“SAPD just called,” Pete explained. “They tried your cell first, but the call couldn’t go through in here.”
Brandon was aware of that. Because the waiting room was right next to radiology, the walls had been reinforced with steel, making reception poor at best. Still, he figured his deputies would keep him informed, and they had. During Cash’s three hours of surgery, either Pete or Sheila had paid them a visit at least every half hour.
“SAPD found more stuff on Dr. Farris’s computer,” Pete continued. He shook his head. “That woman was something else. One of the gunmen who took the maternity hostages was her patient, so she learned about the hostage situation before it even happened. But she didn’t lift a finger to stop it.”
That sent a coil of anger through Brandon. Willa had gone through hell and nearly died while as a hostage, and it could have been stopped before it even started.
Of course, if it had, he might never have met Willa and known about the baby.
Ironic that Willa was here in his arms because of Dr. Farris and those hostage-taking gunmen.
“So, if she knew the gunmen, was she also the one who hired them?” Willa asked.
“I guess you could say she just paid them to do something extra. Their boss had already hired them to tamper with some evidence, and Dr. Farris just paid them on the side to do the same for her. She had her DNA replaced with tissue from the homeless man who was arrested for Jessie Beecham’s murder.”
“A murder that Dr. Farris committed,” Willa mumbled. “Yes. That woman was indeed something else.”
Brandon agreed. But this might not be over. “What about the other hostage situation, the one that’s supposed to happen today?”
“It was a lie,” Pete insisted. “Well, according to the notes SAPD found, it was. She hired Shore to kill Willa and to also get out the word that there’d be another set of hostages taken. But the story was just a ruse to draw Willa out of hiding.”
Brandon cursed. The ruse had worked.
“There won’t be any other hostages,” Willa said. And she repeated it. The breath just swooshed out of her, and when she looked at Brandon, he saw her smile. It was, well, amazing and it lit up her entire face.
Suddenly, it felt like Christmas morning.
“Y’all need me to bring you anything?” Pete asked.
Willa shook her head, but she didn’t take her eyes off Brandon. “It’s really over. No more danger. No more hostages. I’m free.”
“The danger and hostage parts are true. But what about your memory?” Pete asked.
She paused a moment, as if going through her thoughts. “Everything seems to be there. I’m free,” Willa repeated. “For the first time in months, I’m really free.”
Yeah. And that hit him like a sucker punch.
Brandon was sure he wasn’t smiling, and that warm Christmas glow faded as quickly as it’d come.
Willa was indeed free, and that meant she could and probably would be leaving soon. Of course, that left Brandon with a huge question.
Was he going to let her go?
It took him about a split second to come up the answer to that.
No. He wasn’t going to let her go.
Well, not without a fight anyway.
“I know I said I might not make a good father,” Brandon heard himself blurt out. Not the best start he could have had for what would be the most important next few minutes of his life.
“But I’d like to try,” Brandon added.
Willa blinked. Stared at him.
“Uh, I should probably go,” Pete mumbled. And he didn’t wait for either of them to acknowledge his exit. Being the smart man that he was, Pete left Brandon to fumble around with what he wanted to say to Willa.
“I’d like to try to be a good father,” Brandon amended. He shook his head. That still wasn’t right. “I’ll do everything within my power to be a good father.”
“To Hannah,” she supplied, making it sound like more of a question than clarification.
“Hannah.” He huffed. And then cursed when Willa looked hurt from that huff. “No. I didn’t mean it that way. I used the name, Hannah, to make the baby more personal to Dr. Farris, so she wouldn’t shoot you. It’s a hostage negotiation technique to personalize the crisis situation.”
Great. Now, he was babbling.
“But I do like the name Hannah,” he added when Willa just stared at him.
Still babbling.
So, Brandon changed tactics. He cradled the back of Willa’s neck and pulled her closer. He kissed her. Really kissed her. He put his mouth to hers and took in the softness of her lips. Her taste. That taste soothed him, fired his blood and reminded him just what was at stake here.
Everything was at stake.
“I’m in love with you,” he said against her mouth.
He braced himself for her shock and expected her to pull back and stare at him some more. After all, he’d given her no indication of that love. Hell, he hadn’t realized himself until he saw Dr. Farris point the gun at her. Then, in that moment, he knew this wasn’t about protecting Willa and the baby.
It was about loving them.
Willa didn’t pull back, but he felt her smile form on her lips. “You love me?”
Well, this answer was easy. “I do.”
“Good.” And she kissed him long and hard and stopped only when both of them remembered they needed to breathe. “Because I’m love in with you, too.”
The breath he’d just taken in stalled in his throat. His entire body seemed to stop, so he could grasp what she’d just said.
“You love me?” he clarified.
“God, yes. I thought that was way too obvious.”
Now, it was his turn to smile against her mouth. But Brandon did ease back because he wanted to see her face. Her eyes. That incredible smile. Willa took his breath away again, and he didn’t care if he ever got it back.
Maybe it was because he was totally lost in the moment that he didn’t hear the footsteps until they stopped right next to him.
Brandon caught the movement out of the corner of his eye and automatically reached for his weapon. But no weapon was necessary. It was Dr. Ross Jenkins, the surgeon who had been operating on Cash.
Both Brandon and Willa got to their feet, and Brandon tried to interpret the surgeon’s poker face. He couldn’t. He could only stand there and wait.
“Sergeant Newsome took three bullets to the chest cavity. He’s lucky. Damn lucky. Other than a collapsed lung and some broken ribs, he should be fine.”
The relief was instant, and Brandon grabbed Willa and hauled her into his arms for a celebratory kiss. Cash was going to be all right. Dr. Farris hadn’t succeeded in any part of her plan to kill all three of them.
“I’ll keep him sedated most of the day,” the doctor continued. “No visitors until tomorrow. So, you two might as well go home.” His attention dropped to Willa’s belly. “Do I need to call in the OB?”
“No,” Willa quickly answered. “No contractions. And Hannah’s kicking like crazy. She’s fine.”
The doctor nodded, pulled on his surgical cap and ambled away.
Willa smiled again, but there were tears in her eyes. “Cash is going to be okay,” she mumbled.
Brandon understood those tears. They were of the happy variety. And even though the timing wasn’t the best, he decided to see if there was another level of happy to be had here.
But before he could utter a word, Willa pulled back her shoulders and stared at him. “Are you going to ask me to marry you?”
He had been about to do just that, but Brandon hadn’t expected her to jump the gun. And he coul
dn’t tell if it was a question she wanted him to ask. The tears were still there in her eyes, but she was no longer smiling.
She was waiting.
It was a risk because if she said no, she might feel too awkward to hang around. She might say they needed space, time or some other thing that Brandon was sure he didn’t want.
He wanted Willa.
He wanted their daughter.
And he had never been so sure of anything in his entire life.
To increase her chances of saying yes, he snapped her back to him for a kiss. He made it long, French and hopefully as mind-numbing as he could manage. Willa added some mind numbing moves of her own and pressed herself against him. Hard against him. In such a way that reminded him that he could spend at least part of Christmas day making love to her.
But first, he needed to ask the question.
And get the answer.
He caught on her shoulders and looked her straight in the eyes. “Willa, will you—”
“Yes,” she interrupted. She grabbed a handful of his shirt and dragged him right back to her.
But Brandon wasn’t sure exactly what question she was answering. “Yes?” he quizzed. He stepped back a little so he could keep a clear head.
Her smile returned. So did the kiss. “Yes, I’ll marry you, Brandon. I’ll be your wife. Your lover. The mother of your children. Yes to all of it.”
That was the only answer he wanted.
So, Brandon pulled her to him and kissed the start of their new life together.
ISBN: 978-1-4268-7511-3
SAVIOR IN THE SADDLE
Copyright © 2010 by Delores Fossen
All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher, Harlequin Enterprises Limited, 225 Duncan Mill Road, Don Mills, Ontario M3B 3K9, Canada.
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