Embattled Hearts 1 (23 page)

“G
unshots fired! I’m taking out the woman. What the hell?”

Adrenaline raced through John’s blood as Duncan floored the vehicle for the last five hundred yards, then skidded to a halt outside the warehouse. Men were already running toward the commotion. Chad took long enough to park John’s chair below him, then bolted into the darkness. John literally dropped into the chair and shoved off.

Crumbled concrete littered the ground around the building, not to mention crushed glass. He felt his hands being nicked, but he refused to stop until he got to Shannon.

Chad had just dragged Wilkins’ body off her when he got within sight. She sat up and shook her head in response to a question he asked. With a final push, John entered the cleared area around the melee. Shannon looked up at him and tears flooded her eyes. Chad un-cuffed her hands and helped her to her feet. Though not quite steady, she ran to John.

She slammed into him full force, almost tipping him over backwards. He swung her into his arms and draped her across his lap. For the first time in hours, John took a breath as he clutched Shannon to him. She burst into tears and buried her face in his neck, gasping. John felt tears flood his own eyes and was man enough to just let them roll as he whispered to her over and over again that she was okay. He pushed her back for a moment to make sure that the blood coating her front wasn’t her own. She shuddered as she looked down at herself, but shook her head. “It’s not mine. I shot him. I shot him.”

She burrowed into him again and he just let her cry.

When the PD came late to the party, she was still curled in his lap, though her sobs had quieted. Ambulances came one after another. Ex-Officer Jimmy Wilkins was pronounced on the scene. Lisa Dixon was concussed and had a broken collarbone from being slammed to the concrete by Cameron Jennings. Cameron had a gunshot wound to the shoulder but would be fine when they stitched him up.

As the coroner lifted Wilkins’ body to the gurney, Shannon suddenly ripped away from John and staggered away from the confusion to be sick. John held her hair away from her face until she was done, then pulled her into his arms to offer what support he could. Killing a man was never easy, and for a person like Shannon, not familiar with such harsh realities, it had to be especially hard.

Nobody knew why Cameron was there, only that he’d been the one to step in front of the bullet meant for Shannon. Harper had seen the whole thing through his scope and had pulled his shot in the split second before he’d hit them both with his high-powered rifle.

When the PD started asking questions and sorting details, Harper faded away. There was no need for them to know what had been planned.

The detective in charge was thorough but kind, and Shannon had no problems answering his questions. The detective’s job was made easier by the camera that had recorded the whole incident, including the scene of Lisa standing over top of Shannon, ready to kill her.

Once Shannon got over the first wave of sickness and caught her breath, she was done. She pressed a kiss to John’s cheek and slid from his lap, but stood beside him as they answered questions. The contact that Duncan had been talking to all day, Chief Quillen, arrived and paved the way for a lot of the details to be smoothed over and expedited. Within just a few minutes, they were given permission to go home.

One of the men had driven Duncan’s vehicle inside the warehouse, so it was a lot easier to leave. John’s hands were gritty with glass, but he didn’t say anything as they all bundled into the truck for the ride back to town. He sat in the backseat and kept his arm around Shannon all the way. She nestled into his chest and drifted off to sleep.

The knot in his chest loosened inside him as he thought of what could have happened, but didn’t. Everything had turned out as perfect as was possible in a situation as crazy as this one. Yes, a man had died, but by his own actions. He knew Shannon would be feeling all kinds of guilt over what she’d done, but he hoped she felt vindicated as well, and more secure in her own ability to take care of herself.

He felt useless as fuck. He’d trusted Lisa when he shouldn’t have and Shannon had been stolen out of his grasp. He hadn’t been able to track her, or find her, or even fucking get to her rescue in time because of the damn chair. She’d killed to protect herself, which he admired, but he would have taken that responsibility off her hands in a heartbeat. It would have been a drop in the bucket considering all the years of service he’d had.

“Do you think she wants to go home?” Duncan asked softly.

“Yes,” Shannon murmured against his chest.

John was surprised she was awake. She was still curled into his side, quiet, unmoving, but apparently cognizant.

Within just a few minutes Duncan pulled into her driveway. He circled the vehicle to retrieve John’s chair.

John’s face heated as they waited for him to shift off the seat and drop down. All of the attention should have been on Shannon, and her comfort. Instead, he was making her wait on him. He must have made some involuntary movement because she reached out and grabbed one of his hands, turning it palm up. She gasped at the sight of his ripped-up palms and seeping blood.

“Jeez, John. Why didn’t you say something?” Duncan growled.

His skin glinted with glass. When he looked at Shannon’s face, he was dismayed to see her eyes full of tears again. “Aw, Shannon, I’m fine. It’s no big deal.”

She shook her head and pursed her lips, then stepped behind his chair. “I know it pisses you off to be pushed, but you’re going to let me this time, John Palmer. Do not touch those wheels. Duncan, thank you for the ride.”

“No, problem, Shannon. I’m just glad we made it there when we did. Don’t worry about work. Take as long as you need. And John,” he continued, “I expect you to be with Shannon while she’s off. There’ll be two guards posted for the next forty-eight hours, as well.”

John snorted but didn’t argue. Of course he’d be with her. Actually, the guards would be welcome. The two of them could rest without worry.

Shannon rolled him up the ramp as Duncan pulled out of the driveway. Somebody had cleared it of snow while they were gone, but he gritted his teeth in humiliation. He was damn heavy and she’d been through ten hours of hell. Forward motion slowed at the top of the ramp and he reached down to help her, but she snapped at him to not touch. Biting his tongue, he crossed his arms over his chest, struggling not to completely lose his shit.

*****

Shannon paused to retrieve her cluttered key-ring from the pocket of the borrowed coat. Harper had secured the house when he reconned and given the keys to John. When he handed it to her, she’d gotten choked up at that glimpse of the familiar. And as she pushed him inside the entryway, she felt it again. She never thought she’d see home again. Tears dripped down her cheeks, but she brushed them away and straightened. John was hurt.

She didn’t realize until afterward where they’d kept her, less than five miles from her own house. She’d seen the glass on the ground, but it just hadn’t registered. Heck, John had probably had a hell of a time even getting to her with all the debris littering the warehouse floor. Her throat tightened at what he’d obviously gone through to get to her. She looked at the wheels of his chair. Glass glinted there as well.

“John, we have an issue.”

He turned his head to look up at her, and something about the way he looked, pissed and grumpy, made her heart ache. She pressed a solid kiss to his forehead before she motioned to the wheels of his chair.

“Fuck!”

She grinned at the familiar expletive and shook her head. “I think what we need to do is, you need to sit here for a minute while I go strip off these clothes and grab tweezers. Once we get as much as we can out of your hands maybe you can shift to my desk chair and we’ll work on the wheels.”

His solid jaw was clamped shut and he looked furious that she had to do all this for him, but he gave a tight nod. “Go ahead and hop in the shower. I’m not moving.”

As quickly as she could she went to her bathroom and ripped off her bloodstained clothes, shuddering at the clammy feel. Thoughts of Jimmy coming at her again clouded her mind, but she shoved them away and stepped under the spray. John needed her. And she needed the
distraction
of John needing her.

Within just a few minutes she had scrubbed and washed her whole body twice. She also took a few seconds to brush the sickness from her mouth. In the bedroom she slipped on a pale pink set of sweats, then went to the bathroom to gather medical supplies. Tweezers, gauze pads, a warm bowl of water, a paper cup and a towel. It wasn’t until she was leaving the room and saw where John had blasted the lock trying to get to her that she realized she harbored no fearful feelings of her bedroom, even though it was where she’d been taken.

John was in the same spot as before. He’d started taking the larger pieces of glass out himself, making a little pile on his jeans-clad thigh. Shannon swung the office chair from her desk on the other side of the room and positioned herself directly in front of him, her knees pressing against his. John glowered but held out his hands when she wiggled her fingers. “Don’t get cut,” he told her gruffly.

Shannon smiled at the words. He took care of her better than anybody ever had before. Even when she was trying to take care of him. “I’ll be fine. Just hold still.”

For a solid twenty minutes she hunched over his hands and plucked slivers from his bloody palms. He never said a word. The calluses he had built up maneuvering the chair had also kept him from feeling as much pain as a normal person probably would, and the bleeding was minimal. “I think it looked worse than it actually is.” She looked up at him with a smile and was taken aback by the intensity in his dark gaze.

“I thought I’d lost you,” he ground out.

Her eyes filled with tears, but she wiped them away on her shoulders. “Not right now, damn it. I’ll never get through this without breaking down if you don’t talk about something else.”

He clamped his jaw shut and looked away, though she thought she caught a sheen of moisture in his eyes.

Blinking rapidly, Shannon took a deep breath and rinsed his hands in the water, running her own fingertips over the skin. It felt clear, but she had a feeling she’d missed a couple deep ones. She cleared her throat as she set the supplies away. “I think you’re good enough now to shift to this chair.”

John looked at the armless desk chair and frowned. “I don’t know.”

“I’ll brace it while you shift over. Just remember not to touch your wheels.”

A maneuver easier said than done. Even though she braced as hard as she could, John was a lot bigger than she was, and at one point they both almost went to the floor. But John’s strong arms saved them. Finally, he was settled in the seat.

They both then went to work on the wheels of his chair, which had a lot more glass in them than his hands had.

“I’ll have to get Chad to bring over my backup chair. This rubber is going to be Swiss cheese.”

Shannon snorted and nodded her head. “Wonderful ride, I’m sure.”

“Not!”

They laughed together and Shannon appreciated the normality. When his wheels were as clean as they were going to get them, he shifted back into his seat. Shannon surveyed the cup of green and brown glass and shook her head. Definitely not what she had planned to be doing tonight.

She waved a hand at him. The dark blue t-shirt he wore had bloodstains on it from contact with her shirt. “Why don’t you go take a shower?”

He nodded slightly and rolled away. “Stay in the house, okay?”

Shannon threw the cup away and rinsed the water from the bowl. His warning was not needed, though she did plan to check on the kittens in the garage.

Pickle was especially glad to see her, twining about her legs over and over again as she carried the kitten box inside. She picked up each of the little cats and fondled them beneath their chins, setting them to purring before she placed them back in the box. Boohini clawed his way to the top, demanding his share of the love, and Shannon sat down on the kitchen floor to cuddle. It seemed so mundane to be petting a kitten after the ordeal she’d been through, but she soaked up the quiet, broken only by his diligent purr. Her world began to right itself.

When John rolled into the kitchen twenty minutes later, she was stir-frying at the stove.

“I hope you’re hungry. I made a lot more than I’ll ever eat. Seems like the hunger just caught up to me.”

“I’m very hungry, actually. And it’s the adrenaline rush fading that’s made you hungry.”

She steamed rice in the microwave and threw a couple of eggrolls from the freezer into the toaster oven. Within a couple of minutes they were eating. Shannon actually ate more than she expected to, and enjoyed it thoroughly. Almost directly afterwards, though, tiredness began to set in. She glanced at the kitchen clock and was shocked that it was going on seven o’clock at night. She and John had been home for hours, though it felt like minutes. It was almost like she’d been wading through sludge.

John spoke, snapping her out of her reverie. “I think we should go lie down.”

Shannon nodded, tired beyond reason, but she didn’t move. John rolled to her side and motioned to his lap. With a sigh, she lay across his legs and wrapped her arms around his neck. Time completely stopped as she curled into him to absorb his heat, inhaling the woodsy scent of the body wash he used.

She must have dozed off because they were suddenly in her bedroom, and John was urging her to her feet to get under the covers. Shannon did as he directed, then reached out her hand. “Will you lie with me?”

“Yes.”

That one little word made her incredibly happy. A few minutes later, when John snuggled in behind her, she sighed in relief. She could relax now. Tension leached from her body as his warmth invaded her bones, and she drifted away.

*****

John woke to Shannon curling into him, her hand across his belly. The house was silent other than the tick of a clock in the hallway. He looked down at her face resting against his chest. The moonlight filtering in gilded her features silver, and the tracks of tears glistened on her cheeks. “What’s wrong, babe?”