Harlequin Romantic Suspense July 2021 Box Set

by Carla Cassidy

  “Josh, come over here.” Heidi was pointing her gun straight at Jasmine again. With Bella out of the way, there was nothing stopping her from shooting. Josh had already made his choice between the two of them clear.

  She wasn’t going to beg.

  “Here’s how this will work. You say Jasmine was the one with the gun. It’s stolen, so there’s no way to tell who really brought it up here. She knew you were up here. She purposely brought Bella to put you in a position where you’d be violating visitation if you were caught. She’s here to force you into giving her custody of Bella, which is what she’s been after all along. You and I, we love each other. We’re just trying to get through our issues, get our counseling and be a family.” She looked at Josh. “Right, sweet man?”

  Josh just looked at her, standing there holding the gun trained on Jasmine. Heidi barely glanced in his direction. She was too busy doing what she did.

  “Jasmine held you at gunpoint. Then I showed up unexpectedly, because she didn’t know you’d told me about this place, and told me you were going to be up here, and I’d just managed to get the gun away from her before the cops got here and that’s when you grabbed it and the gun accidently went off...”

  Pounding came from the other side of the door. “It’s Johnson. Let me in.”

  Heidi looked at Josh. “Got it, sweet man? We pin this on her. You go to your hearing on Thursday and take the plea—you’re right about that. You need to have things all cleared up. And then we’re through our counseling and put this mess behind us, we take Bella and go. Just like we planned...”

  Josh looked at Jasmine. Greg pounded on the door a second time. Calling out for Heidi. Asking if she was okay.

  “We didn’t plan to leave the country, Heidi,” Josh said, moving in slightly, closer to the couch. “I didn’t tell you I was up here. You must’ve figured it out when the cops came to you last night, thinking you were involved in our disappearance. That’s the first you knew of it, but you tried to reach me, you couldn’t and so you came up here. Hoping they’d follow, just like you said.”

  Jasmine’s eyes filled with tears, and this time, they spilled down her cheeks.

  “I do love you,” Josh continued. “I’d do almost anything for you. But I will not hurt Jasmine because of you or anything you do to me, to Bella, to anyone. I won’t hurt her again. Not ever again.”

  She couldn’t see through her tears, gave a single sob that rent through her upper body with blinding pain.

  “Lower the gun, Heidi, please,” Josh said. “Open the door. We can say whatever we need to say about what happened up here. We’ll let the current charges play out against both of us and see where that leaves us. We can talk about the future. But right now, just put down the gun and open the door before you do something from which we can’t recover.”

  She saw the look come over Heidi’s face and knew that her brother had failed. Jasmine loved him so much for trying, though. He’d come through for her. Greg had, too. Bella was safe.

  She could go.

  “No!” Heidi screamed. “It’s never going to end. You and her. Shutting me out. Treating me like I’m the crazy one. The bad one. It’s all because of the two of you. You... No!” Jasmine saw her trigger finger move.

  Was almost relieved to know it was over.

  She saw flesh in front of her eyes. A body, flying through the air. Heard glass break.

  The shot, when it hit her, wasn’t nearly as painful as she’d expected. More like a heavy splash. On her face. Her neck. Maybe her hands.

  Greg was there, by the window. She could see him. Was still sitting up, afraid to move in case she died.

  “Josh, no!” She heard Heidi’s scream. Saw her face, stricken and broken, as she rushed forward, only to be stopped by an armed officer.

  Greg was on the floor, kneeling. At her brother’s unconscious body.

  It took her that long to figure it out.

  She hadn’t been shot. Josh had.

  Her brother had jumped in front of the bullet meant for her.

  * * *

  Greg felt a pulse. Blood oozed into a pool on the floor beneath Josh Taylor, and Greg couldn’t tell if it was coming from the man’s neck, head or upper back. But he felt a pulse.

  Officers swarmed the room now. Heidi was being handcuffed. Orders given. A paramedic came rushing in and Greg stood, only one thing in mind.

  She was sitting on the couch, crying, holding her stomach, while she stared at her brother. Blood spatter dotted her forehead, cheek and neck.

  “He’s alive,” Greg said to her, the rest of the cacophony in the room fading away as he sat down beside Jasmine, putting an arm around her. “He’s losing a lot of blood. His pulse is a little weak but regular.” He told her the truth.

  “It was meant for me.” Her lips mouthed the words more than she spoke them. “It was meant for me.” She wasn’t sobbing. The only real motions coming from her were the tears dripping down her face.

  “He was protecting you,” Greg said, trying to pull her more fully into his arms, to put himself in between her and the vision of her brother lying on the floor.

  There was talk of blood pressure and other vitals behind him. Someone called for a stretcher, which was already coming in the door.

  “Gunshot to the back,” someone said.

  “That’s good news,” Greg told Jasmine. It wasn’t his head or neck. It still could have his heart.

  Jasmine didn’t respond to him. She’d slipped into a hell he couldn’t penetrate. This wasn’t the first time she’d witnessed violence. Or seen blood pooling from her brother’s back. The fear Greg had felt after his father’s accident, and again the night before, was back. He couldn’t lose her now. Couldn’t let her lose herself.

  “Bella’s out there. Are you going to be able to be there for her? Or do you want me to have someone take her?”

  He had no idea where the words came from. Was shocked when he heard how heartless he sounded.

  “No,” Jasmine said, blinking, and looking away from the movement around Josh for the first time as she wiped away her tears. “No. She needs family. Stability. Now more than ever. I’ll...um...am I free to go? I’m not under arrest or anything?”

  “God, no, you’re not under arrest.” How could she think so? She was the victim here and...

  Heidi’s words came back to him. All lies. He’d known that immediately. Just known. And he suspected that Josh Taylor was the victim of an insidious woman, as well.

  “Let’s get you cleaned up a bit,” he said, standing and reaching to support her under her arms as he helped her to stand. After the shock, she might be a bit weak-kneed. “You don’t want Bella seeing you like...”

  He stopped as Jasmine winced markedly as she stood.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked, heart pounding. Was the shot a through and through? Had she been hit after all and hadn’t said anything? His gaze was poring over her. Looking for blood pools. Other than the spatter, and the tears, she looked unharmed.

  “I just...fell,” she said. “I actually tripped over Josh’s foot on the way in to get Bella. Hurt my left rib.”

  He noticed a small redness on her chin, too, then. A little scrape. Had the feeling she was lying to him. And let it go. There would be time in the future to find out exactly what had gone on in that cabin.

  At the moment, getting her out of there was more important.

  * * *

  Jasmine watched the paramedics load Josh onto a stretcher. Followed it to the door. Heidi had ben cuffed and lead away. She didn’t watch that. Greg wanted Jasmine to ride in an ambulance to the hospital. When she wouldn’t even consider doing so, he tried to get her to agree to an emergency room visit. She refused that, too. Her rib might be broken. It wouldn’t be the first time.

  There was nothing they’d do for it, except maybe wrap it. It was a rib. It
hurt like hell. And then it wouldn’t.

  She didn’t even tell him about the headache. One over-the-counter painkiller tablet and a good night’s sleep would take care of that. She loved his concern and bit back telling him this wasn’t her first rodeo.

  It was the first time she’d ever had a gun pointed at her.

  And the first time she’d seen her brother get shot.

  She was shaken up. And was glad Greg was there.

  Other than Bella, she couldn’t think about the rest of it. Not then. Later. With Bloom. She’d figure it out. Mostly what stood out was that Josh hadn’t purposely hurt Heidi. She’d been right about that all along. But Greg’s evidence, all lies from Heidi that the prosecutor had believed, had panicked him to the point of doing what he felt he had to do to get Bella and run with her. To keep her safe from her mother.

  Because he didn’t believe in the system anymore. And he hadn’t trusted Jasmine.

  Because of her feelings for Greg.

  She let the detective drive her and Bella back to Santa Raquel, to The Lemonade Stand. An officer following in Greg’s car, with a third car behind that to bring the officer back. Feeling guilty for all the fuss, she just hadn’t had the energy to argue about it.

  Bella kept asking where Daddy was. She told her he was busy with work. Told her it was a work and school day.

  “I s’posed to show him the lights,” she said.

  “I know, and he wants to see them, too. You’ll get a chance soon.” She hoped to God she wasn’t lying about that. Would deal with that obstacle when she had to do so.

  The little girl, kicking her feet lightly in her car seat as she often did, seemed satisfied with the answer. She never asked about her mother.

  Leaving her niece at daycare, where she knew she’d be safe and loved, she had Greg take her home, where their entourage left them.

  And then, there they were. Alone. In her house. She couldn’t stay, of course. She had to get to the hospital. To Josh.

  But for just that one second, she wished that Greg would always be there with her. In her home. In her heart...forever.

  CHAPTER 26

  Josh was going to be fine. Sore. He’d need therapy to get back full use of his shoulder, but by the next afternoon he’d been released from the hospital. As there were no longer any charges against him, he was free to see Bella. Jasmine knew that if he’d intended to seriously hurt her in the cabin, he’d have succeeded. After speaking to her counselor and Josh’s, with his permission, she agreed to bring Bella and stay the first couple of nights with him after his release. He had some real issues to work through; he’d purposely put his foot up to slow Jasmine down, though he hadn’t meant her to fall flat on the ground. And he’d backhanded her—though not with full force as their father had done. It was nothing that would hold weight in court in terms of charges. And after the hell Heidi had put him through over the past year, Jasmine wasn’t pressing any. Josh had just risked his life to save hers. He deserved a second chance. And he’d already met extensively with his therapist. After visiting her own doctor to make certain that she was fine, and hearing that her ribs were only bruised, Jasmine took Bella to pick her father up from the hospital and then back to her own home for the first time in a while. She didn’t see Greg at all.

  He called, though. Each night.

  And they texted, too, after each of them got in their respective beds. They didn’t talk about what had happened, other than Greg asking how Josh was doing. And she asked how his father was getting along.

  They didn’t talk about cases. Or Heidi.

  Or them, either. They just...talked.

  Something was different with him. He seemed warmer and yet more distant, too. Maybe he’d had second thoughts about their friendship arrangement.

  She wasn’t ready to hear about it if he had. She just needed another few days. Long enough to be able to sit up without holding her breath.

  “We have to talk,” Josh said to her on the second night at his house. Bella was in bed, and she and Josh were in his living room—him lying back in his recliner, where he’d determined he could sleep more comfortably. She’d just come out to check on him before turning in herself.

  She shook her head. “Not now, Josh. Someday, maybe. Not now.” She was leaving in the morning to head back home, back to work. And taking Bella with her. For the time being.

  “Now,” he said, pushing the foot of the recliner down as he sat up straight. His movements were slow, controlled. The tears in his eyes weren’t.

  “Josh.” She was on the floor at his feet, kneeling there. Not in submission. Or fear. Nothing but love emanated from her. Healthy love. “Don’t do this...you saved my life. You were going to die for me. That trumps any and everything else.” She’d already come to that conclusion. What had happened in their cottage that night...it was their secret. Two kids who’d grown up in hell and somehow managed to save each other from it, too.

  “It’s not okay, Jas.” Reaching out, he smoothed the hair off her forehead, her cheek. “Hurting you is not okay,” he said softly. “Throwing myself in front of that bullet... I’d rather be dead than hurt you.”

  She covered his hand on her face with her own. “I know.” She got it. “I hurt you once, too, Josh,” she reminded him. “The important thing is that it never happened again. And it won’t with you, either.”

  She’d worked it all out... He’d been absolutely certain that the only chance of saving Bella from Heidi had been to get her away from Jasmine and out of the country. With Heidi’s last lies being believed, Josh had lost all trust in the system.

  “You pushed me in desperation, not anger,” he said, a look in his eye she’d never seen before. Resolution. Acceptance.

  “And that’s exactly why you lifted your foot when I was about to take Bella and go. You knew if I did, Heidi would get her.”

  “I was just in a bad place. Feeling completely trapped. I hadn’t done anything wrong, but right wasn’t going to win.”

  “I know.” She was glad to know that he knew, too.

  “I want to go forward with the custody thing, Jas. Just for now. I want to give you guardianship of Bella.” With Heidi in jail, where she would most likely be for the next couple of decades, he could proceed more easily.

  “Josh, please. You’re such a great dad. And she needs you.”

  “She needs me healthy, sis. And I’m not. All of these years with Heidi...” The charges against him had been dropped. He’d been telling the truth all along, as Heidi had finally corroborated. Each time she’d been hurt, she’d been egging him on and had worked it so that she got hurt. Even the foot in the door. She’d deliberately put her foot in the way of the door closing. She was hoping, by confessing, to win back Josh’s love and support.

  “I need some time. Counseling. I need to learn how to trust myself again.” He looked at her. “And to forgive myself. And...”

  He looked away, and then back again. “I need you to press charges against me, Jasmine.”

  She stared at him, mouth open. Was he insane? Had he... What on...

  “Hear me out,” he said when she started to shake her head. Vigorously. “I need you to do it for me. I have to be held accountable. To pay for what I did. Or I’m never going to be able to get past it. It will always be there with me. Unfinished business. But more, I need it for you, Jas. I can’t look at you, love you, knowing that I hurt you and you just took it. It’s eating me alive inside that I’m that guy.” He started to cry. “Please, sis. If you do nothing else for me, please, go to the police. Tell them what happened that night at the cabin.”

  But Josh...he was a victim who’d made a horrendous mistake and was holding himself accountable to it. He was giving up his daughter until he knew he was well. Pressing charges...the court wasn’t going to do anything but recommend counseling.

  “I’ll tell you what,” she o
ffered. “I’ll tell Greg. He’s an officer of the law. If he thinks we should take it further, we will.”

  Josh studied her, his bottom lip jutted out. And then he nodded.

  “And if he agrees with me, that there’s good reason, for anyone, to not let this go—with the understanding that you complete counseling—then we let it go.”

  “Let’s see what he has to say,” Josh told her. But he gave her a sad smile. “I love you so much, Jasmine. I can’t believe I let her get to me to the point that I betrayed your trust. Even for a second.”

  “Yeah. You want to know something I’ve figured out through all of this?”

  He nodded again.

  “Trust doesn’t die because the human holding it, or giving it, makes one mistake. Trust dies when the same mistakes are repeated multiple times.” She was never going to forget that horrible night, or the pain he’d caused her, emotionally and physically. What he’d done wasn’t okay. But she’d already forgiven him for it. More, she trusted him not to do it again.

  Just as she’d always known Wynne’s lack of verbal control that one time had been a momentary overload, not an underlying illness. Or a personality factor.

  Josh reached for with his good arm, gave her a gentle hug, about the shoulders, careful of her ribs. “I love you, Jasmine. In so many ways, you are my salvation.”

  “And you are mine,” she told him with complete honesty.

  * * *

  Greg had no idea what to expect when he showed up at Jasmine’s house Friday night—her first night home from Josh’s. He called just outside the gate to let her know he was there. He’d leave if she asked him to do so.

  It was eight thirty. Long since dark. Bella would be in bed. And Jasmine might be lying in bed already, after the week she’d had.

  Bella...if things worked out with Jasmine, and he had to believe they would...he’d have a child in his life full time. Not his biologically, but he wasn’t his parents’ biological child, either. It didn’t take biology to be a good protector and teacher. All it took was love.