A Cavanaugh Christmas (20 page)

Kait glanced toward Tom and saw that he had drawn his service revolver. He pointed the weapon directly at Greta Crammer’s head.

The desperate look in Greta’s eyes made everything click into place for Kait. She understood. “You lost your little girl, didn’t you Greta?”

Greta swallowed as if the painful memory threatened to choke her.

“Ten years ago,” she answered. “She ran into the street to get her ball. The driver should have seen her. But she was so little. I begged her not to die, but she wouldn’t listen. But it’s okay now, because she came back to me. She came back,” she cried happily, looking down at the child who wasn’t hers. “I found her again.”

“No, you didn’t,” Kait stressed. “Your little girl’s gone. This is Megan Willows and she doesn’t belong to you.”

“Yes, she does!” Greta screamed. The sound was bloodcurdling.

“Her mother desperately wants her back, Greta,” Kait told her, keeping her voice low, nonthreatening. “You remember what that’s like, don’t you? To feel like your heart’s been torn out of your chest and then mangled into little tiny pieces. Please let Megan go back to her mother.”

“Her name’s not Megan, it’s Sally. This is Sally,” Greta insisted. “My Sally. This is
my
Sally.” With each word, her voice grew louder, until she was all but shrieking.

“No, I’m not,” the child cried pitifully. “I’m Megan. My name’s Megan. And you’re not my mommy!”

The other woman began to sob in frustration. Her hand went lax and the pruning shears dropped from her fingers. “I just want my baby. I can’t live without my baby,” she cried. “Please don’t take her away from me again. Max, don’t let them do this,” she begged her husband, turning toward him.

Kait took advantage of the moment. Moving swiftly, she wrested the child away from Greta’s grip.

“No!” Greta cried in horror. “Give her back to me. Please, please give her back to me!”

As she held the little girl against her, Kait watched the heavyset woman fall to the ground in a sobbing, incoherent heap.

Megan turned her head away and buried it against Kait’s hip. The little girl clung to her for all she was worth. Kait could feel the little girl trembling against her.

“It’s over, Megan, it’s over,” she whispered over and over again.

And, as her heart both sank and was elated, Kait knew that it was.

Chapter 15

W
hat happened next seemed like a giant jumble.

When she looked back at the events later, Kait still had trouble pulling apart the various strands in order to make sense of it all and replay what happened in its proper order.

There was no order, no clarity.

If she could have actually put it into words at all, she would have had to say that it was some gut instinct that warned her, that sent her into action before she ever knew what she was acting against—or for.

One moment it seemed as if it was all over. Megan had been recovered and the couple who had abducted her were about to be taken into custody. Max Crammer was in the process of being handcuffed by Tom.

Then out of nowhere came this enraged, guttural sound. It seemed almost disembodied, like a wild animal backed into a corner and putting up one last, desperate fight not to be taken captive.

The second Kait heard it, she quickly pushed Megan off to the side, out of range. Then she swung around and threw herself on top of Tom who, because he was slipping the cuffs on Max, had his back to what they both had taken for granted was a chastened, subdued and broken Greta Crammer.

Except that she wasn’t any of those things.

As if a sudden surge of energy had infused itself through her the moment she saw her husband being taken into custody and her “daughter” pulled away from her, the woman lumbered to her feet, shears once again clutched in her hand. She hurdled herself at Tom’s back, holding the shears aloft, ready to sink them in and kill the man who was about to kill her only dream.

She would have driven the blades right into his back if Kait hadn’t knocked Tom down, putting her own back between the shears and their target.

Kait’s involuntary scream echoed through the yard as the shear blades sank deep into her shoulder.

Horrified, Tom twisted out from beneath her, his weapon back in his hands. He discharged it twice, stopping the woman as she began to deliver a second, most likely fatal blow.

There was a stunned expression on Greta’s face as she sank to her knees and then crumpled, blood oozing from the bullet wound in the middle of her forehead. The other bullet had caught her in the chest.

The woman was dead before she hit the ground.

Tom instantly turned to Kait, his heart hammering so hard it felt as if it was breaking apart his ribs. He’d never been so terrified in his life.

“Kait!”

Dazed, the yard shifting back and forth before her eyes, Kait struggled to get up on her knees. She didn’t quite make it, but she waved him away. “I’m fine. We’re even now. Go see about Megan,” she ordered weakly.

Rather than cowering in a corner, the little girl came running over to Kait. Tears welled up in her eyes and streamed down her cheeks.

“You’re hurt. Did she kill you?” she cried, clearly frightened but unwilling to back away from the woman who had rescued her.

“Nope… Takes…more than…that…to kill me.” Despite her desire to reassure Megan by making light of the situation, Kate had to struggle to force each word out of her mouth. They emerged in slow motion.

In the background, she heard Tom yelling something into his cell phone that sounded like, “Officer down, officer down.”

It took her a full moment to realize he was calling about her and not someone else.

“You’re…safe now…Megan. She…can’t…hurt…you.”

It was the last thing Kait remembered saying. As she tried to lift her hand to stroke the little girl’s hair, she felt everything pulling away from her.

And then it went completely dark.

Was she on fire?

The burning sensation that seared through her, encompassing her back, hurt like hell. As she tried to take in a breath, she found it hurt even more.

Disoriented, Kait tried to make out shapes. That was when she realized that her eyes were shut. Opening them took almost all the strength she had.

What was going on here?

After what felt like an eternity, she finally did manage to open her eyes. Blinking, Kait slowly focused on her surroundings.

White.

Hospital bed.

She was lying in a hospital bed. Why? What was she doing here? And why did it hurt so much to breathe?

Kait struggled to sit up and found, to her everlasting exasperation, that she couldn’t. She was just too weak and in too much pain to pick up more than just her head. “Damn it.”

The whispered, vehement curse jolted Tom out of the semisleep that had slipped over him. With a start he realized that he must have finally lost the battle against complete exhaustion, a place he’d come to after pacing the length of the hallway, going to hell and back more times than he could count as he waited for Kait to come out of surgery.

When he saw her surgeon approaching, he’d pounced on the man, getting to him before he could even take down his surgical mask.

“She’s a very lucky young woman,” Dr. Meyers had told him, sharing the news with the throng of people who’d come to keep vigil once word had spread that Kait had been stabbed. “Less than a quarter of an inch lower and you’d be standing over her casket right now.”

Brian had woven his way to his nephew and the surgeon. “Then she’s going to be all right?” he asked.

Dr. Meyers nodded. “She’s a strong woman. She’ll be fine—as long as she gives herself some time to heal and doesn’t jump right back into work.” He looked at Brian knowingly. “I know how you people can be.”

“We’ll make sure she gets plenty of rest,” Sean assured the physician, then looked at his son and smiled encouragingly. “She’s a survivor, Tom. Everything about her says it.”

Tom barely remembered nodding. Everything inside him quivered. Now that he knew she was going to live, all the emotions he’d been holding at bay exploded, threatening to decimate his knees.

“You want to go home and get some sleep?” Bridget asked, moving closer to him. “I’ll stay with her until you get back.”

“Or I can,” he heard Kendra offer from the back of the crowd.

There was no way he was going to leave the hospital. Not until he saw Kait regain consciousness.

“No, that’s okay. I want to be here when she opens her eyes.” He looked at Brian. “That knife was intended for me. She put herself in harm’s way for me.” There was guilt and agony in every syllable.

He could tell by Brian’s expression that he wasn’t telling the chief of detectives anything that the man didn’t already know.

Brian patted him on the shoulder. “Hell of a girl you’ve got there, Tom,” he said with unabashed deep admiration.

He turned his attention to the people in the waiting room and beyond. All of them had gathered here to support Tom and the woman who had saved their cousin’s life. Now that they knew she was going to pull through, it was time to give Tom a little space.

“Okay, let’s clear out and give the man some breathing room,” he told the others.

Out of the corner of his eye, Brian saw the relieved expression on one of the nurses’ face. More than one had passed by the waiting room, trying to convince the group to wait for word in shifts, or to appoint just one person who could serve as a messenger. The suggestions fell on deaf ears. No one wanted to go home and leave Tom at a time like this.

Now they could.

As they filed out past Tom, each had something encouraging to say. Sean brought up the rear, telling his son to “Call one of us if you need anything, anything at all.”

Tom merely nodded his compliance, too overcome to speak.

After his family had left, he’d gone to Kait’s room to wait until the orderlies brought her up from the recovery area. When they came in and moved her bed into the room, all he could think of was that she looked almost as pale as the sheet that covered her. Her drained complexion was a sharp contrast to the bright red blood that had pooled around her torso back in the Crammers’ yard.

He’d been content to just sit beside her bed and watch her sleep because now at least he knew that she would eventually wake up. Reassured, he could wait no matter how long it took.

Tom didn’t remember falling asleep, but obviously, he must have. The hoarsely voiced curse had crossed over his threshold of sleep and pulled him across it.

He took a deep breath the moment his eyes flew open. “You’re awake.”

“Apparently,” she mumbled.

He’d almost lost her. He hadn’t realized how devastating that idea was until it had almost happened. Tom looked at her now, absorbing every nuance.

He wanted to take her hand in his, but he refrained. He didn’t know if that would hurt her somehow and he couldn’t chance it.

“How do you feel?”

It took her a second to find the words. “Like a semi ran me over three times and then the driver set me on fire.” Why was it so tiring to talk? She felt incredibly exhausted. “What am I doing here?” she asked.

The sudden lump in his throat made it hard to talk. “Recovering from surgery.”

Her eyebrows drew together in an outward sign of confusion. “Surgery?” she echoed. Why had she needed surgery? Her mind was a complete blank.

“That woman sank her pruning shears into your back up to the hilt.” And then his silent promise to remain calm went up in smoke as the horror of losing her replayed itself in his head. “What the hell were you thinking of, diving in front of her like that?”

It suddenly came back to her. All of it. “I wasn’t diving in front of her,” she protested weakly. “I was pushing you out of the way.” She paused to draw in a breath and winced as she did so. Every single breath hurt. “By the way, you’re welcome,” she said.

He couldn’t bring himself to thank her for what she’d done because if she’d died, he would have never forgiven himself. And never felt whole again. “You could have been killed,” he said angrily.

“So could you,” she countered weakly. Another exhausted sigh escaped her lips. “If you’re here to give me a hard time, could I have a rain check? I’m really not up to it.”

That meant she couldn’t argue back. “Couldn’t think of a better time, then,” he answered. And then his mouth softened into a smile. Moving his chair in closer, Tom lightly stroked her cheek with the back of his hand, thinking how lucky he was that he could do so. That she was still alive. “It was a stupid thing to do.”

“Seemed smart on my end,” she told him with effort. She couldn’t remember it ever being this hard, this exhausting, to talk. “Couldn’t let Tom Cavanaugh get killed on my watch. Your whole family would have come after me.” The entire scene began to play itself over again in her head. Her eyes widened slightly as she remembered. Kait reached for his hand, clutching it. “Megan?”

He knew she was asking after the child’s whereabouts. One of Andrew’s daughters—Callie, he thought her name was—had taken the little girl to her house. “She’s fine. You’re her new hero.”

Details flooded her brain. She had so much to do. “I have to call her parents, let them know we found her—”

She tried to get up again, but Tom gently pushed her back down.

“Already taken care of,” he assured her. “I called her parents right after you came out of surgery.” He couldn’t think coherently before he knew that she’d pull through. “Megan’s father arrived home from the Middle East just this morning. They’re both taking the first flight out of New Mexico they can get. Bridget’s on standby to pick them up the second they land.”

Kait nodded and tried to smile. “That’s good.” The stabbing came back to her. “What about that woman?”

“You mean Greta?” he asked just to be clear what she was asking.

Kait set her mouth grimly. She would remember that awful guttural sound for a very long time. “Yeah, her.”

He didn’t want to talk about Greta right now and merely said, “She won’t be bothering anyone anymore.”

But Kait needed to know. “She’s dead?”