Gold Fire (37 page)

“Of course not.” She spit it back at him, as if the words left a bitter taste in her mouth. “Everything’s all about you, isn’t it?”

He hoped her perceptions about that were as skewed as her logic, but couldn’t think about it now. He needed to get her off the topic of Adam’s death.

“Jase didn’t kill Adam,” Zoe said.

Shit! He shot a frown at Zoe, a desperate message to drop the subject, but she wasn’t looking at him. Her steady gaze was on Jennifer as she defended him.

Jennifer glared. “Shut up! You don’t know anything about Adam.”

Listen to her!
he thought.

Unfortunately, Zoe seemed bent on defending him. “I know what happened. Adam took a dare and ended up dead.”

“Because of Jase!”

“Adam was an adult, wasn’t he?”

“He was my husband!”

“He was capable of making his own decisions. He chose to do something stupid. It’s not Jase’s fault he died.”

Jennifer’s vicious stare slowly changed to one of perverse satisfaction mingled with hate. Chills shot down Jase’s back as she raised the shotgun to her shoulder.

“Pay attention, Jase,” she said, sighting down the barrel at Zoe. “This is what it feels like to lose someone you love.”

Chapter
Twenty-one

Z
oe froze. She’d planned to duck, but apparently gazing down the barrel of a gun induced paralysis. She stared.

Jase didn’t freeze. A blur of motion beside her made her blink. The next second a chair hurtled through the air, coming between her and the deadly black hole of the shotgun.

“Run!” Jase yelled. It was enough to break her stare, to get her muscles moving.

She dove sideways at the same instant a blast broke the air. Above her, tiny pellets crashed into a hanging light, dinging into metal and shattering glass. Glass and spent pellets clattered to the wooden floor in front of her.

Zoe hit the ground moving, scrambling for cover. She’d already thought it out, knew the only protection would be a table, if it wasn’t too heavy to tip. But she wouldn’t be able to do it before Jennifer took a second shot. Zoe got to her knees, glancing over her shoulder to see which way to dodge. Hoping Jase had already found cover.

He hadn’t. His long strides ate up the distance between him and Jennifer.

But not fast enough.

Jennifer’s expression was contorted with hate as she swung the shotgun toward him. Not bothering to aim. She didn’t need to; Jase was too close to miss.

The second it took for the gun to arc down and around stalled into an eternity. Zoe screamed his name, dreading what was coming, and knowing she was too late to change it. Already seeing the result. Hundreds of tiny lead pellets would rip into him, tearing a hole so big he wouldn’t stand a chance.

“Jase!” The name ripped out of her the same instant he dropped. The same instant the gunshot exploded.

Jase fell on Jennifer in a flailing tangle of arms and legs, with the gun poking out to the side, held in two fierce grips. Zoe was up without thinking, racing toward them. Jase was still alive, still struggling for the gun, and she had to help. Blood already smeared Jennifer’s shoulder and face. His blood.

He rose with a violent movement just as Zoe reached him. Half-kneeling above Jennifer, he tore the gun from her grasp. Beneath him, she uttered a feral sound, half growl, half scream, reaching to yank it back. In one swift motion, he turned the stock down, gripped the barrel, and swung it at her head. She fell back, motionless.

“Jase!” Zoe touched him, wanting to see his wound, but afraid to hurt him.

He sucked in a heavy breath and fell hard on his ass. “Tie her up,” he managed, raspy and breathless.

Her eyes were on the blood covering his shoulder, spreading as she watched. She reached for him, fear squeezing her chest. “Let me see.”

He twisted weakly, possibly the best he could do, but enough to fend her off. “No! Tie her first!” He panted for breath, met her eyes. “I’m okay. Do it.”

She didn’t want to fight him, but knew he wouldn’t give in. Knew, too, that he was right. If Jennifer regained consciousness, she was a threat. She had to secure her so she could look after Jase.

“How?” She said it aloud as she stood, her mind racing. “Do you have an electrical cord?”

His brow furrowed as he sat on the floor. “In the office. Desk lamp.”

She ran. The lamp was small, and stubbornly attached to its cord. She didn’t care. She turned Jennifer over, tied her hands behind her back, leaving the lamp, minus its shade, dangling from her wrists.

She turned to Jase. He was lying on the floor, blood spreading across the wood planks. Her stomach flipped, but a reassuring thought kept her focused. There was no gaping hole. He must have been grazed by the edge of the shot. Not hundreds of pellets. Maybe fifty? Please, God, maybe a lot less.

The amount of blood dimmed that hope.

She knelt by his head, fingers frantically running over his shoulder, looking for the worst source of bleeding. Blood seeped onto her hand, obscuring everything. She swiped at his neck and as much of his shoulder as she could expose beneath the shirt.

And found the source. Red holes and lines dotted his neck, oozing blood as she watched, running in rivulets to his shoulder and the floor. Covering his neck in red.

“You’re not okay!” she accused. Raw fear kept the threatening tears at bay. “This is not okay!” She met
his eyes, not caring if he saw her terror, because he was scaring her to death and it made her angry.

His eyes looked back, unfocused. As she watched, they closed. His head fell to the side.

“Jase!” Panic turned into a ball of sickness, rising in her throat.

No time for it. Think! Stop the bleeding.

She raced to the bar, tearing through cupboards, knowing towels would be there somewhere. The stack of folded white cloths caught her eye. She grabbed a handful, and ran back to kneel beside Jase, pressing the whole mass of them to his neck.

“Don’t die,” she ordered, even though he couldn’t hear. She repeated it, “Don’t die, don’t die, don’t die,” becoming a chant as she pressed with one hand and reached into her pocket with the other.

Pulling out her phone, she called 911 for the second time that day.

Chapter
Twenty-two

J
ase was gone. The doctor at the urgent care clinic had taken one look at his wound and had him medevaced to the hospital in Juniper. Their surgery team was better able to handle the delicate repair on his nicked artery. Cal had kept her calm with updates, but it was hours before the police were done with her and she could make the drive to Juniper.

They wouldn’t let her see him. His sister, brother-in-law, and niece were with him, and three visitors at a time was the limit.

She sighed and found a seat in the waiting room where all she could do was remember the blood and imagine the damage. He was alive, that was all that mattered. She cringed at the thought of what he’d suffered, and trembled over how close she’d come to losing him. She could almost understand Jennifer’s pain at losing her husband, even if she couldn’t forgive the twisted way she’d made Jase feel responsible for it. She couldn’t imagine losing Jase.

After more than four hours of frantic worrying, she
couldn’t relax. She needed a distraction. Scanning the waiting room, she spotted an abandoned copy of the Barringer’s Pass
Echo
.

It was the latest issue, the one with the story about Jase reopening the Rusty Wire. She read with a satisfied smile as the reporter cast suspicion for the harassing incidents on Matt and Ruth Ann Flemming. The scandal brewing there was going to keep the
Echo
busy for months to come. Jase had some nice, diplomatically worded quotes about their possible involvement, and a few other things to say about—

She sat up straighter as she spotted her name. Then went cold at what followed:

Garrett denied any personal involvement with Zoe Larkin, the woman who had been representing the Alpine Sky in the negotiations. Ms. Larkin recently left her job at the resort under questionable circumstances, with her boss hinting of a romantic involvement with Garrett. “I’d say we’re more like acquaintances,” Garrett scoffed when asked about it. Emphasizing their strictly business relationship, he added, “Zoe’s hardly my type . . .”

The rest of the story blurred as her eyes lost focus. She lowered the paper, staring at nothing, replaying the lines in her mind. Imagined Jase smiling condescendingly as he spoke. “
Zoe’s hardly my type.
”

An ache began deep in her chest. It hadn’t taken him long to distance himself from her questionable circumstances. Right there, on the same page with that snarky innuendo from Matt, he’d let everyone know he had nothing to do with her. Any questionable actions were all hers.

It had been bad enough to find out that Matt was
only looking for a good time. But Jase had liked her family, understood the side of her she barely knew herself. She’d
trusted
him. But when scandal once again hovered around her, he’d backed off fast enough to burn rubber.

It was the one thing she couldn’t forgive.

She wanted to be furious, but right now it hurt too much. She pressed a fist to her chest, rocking slightly, riding out the pain.

“Zoe Larkin?”

She jerked her head up and found a cute blonde standing in front of her with a questioning look. Jase’s niece, Hailey. She nodded.

“They said to let you know you can go in now.”

“Thanks.”

“I’m Hailey Watson. Jase is my uncle.”

“I know.” She dug deep to find a polite smile.

Hailey tilted her head, friendly but curious. “He was asking if you were here. I think he wanted to see you more than us.”

The girl was obviously fishing, and Zoe wasn’t about to take the bait. She got to her feet. “It was nice to have met you, Hailey. Room 238, wasn’t it?” She hurried down the hall.

•  •  •

He was propped up in bed, hooked up to an IV, and looking better than someone should an hour after emergency surgery. The bandages around his neck and shoulder were a pristine white, a strange contrast to the memory of all that blood. The image was too fresh in her mind, and concern swamped the mixture of anger and hurt brewing in her chest.

She stood nervously beside his bed. “Are you really okay?”

“Yes.” He reached for her hand, and she let him keep it. Pulling it away would be mean, and she couldn’t be mean to someone who’d just survived a brush with death. Someone stitched and bandaged and weak from blood loss. Someone she loved despite his betrayal and the fact that she was leaving him.

Realizing how deep the love went was depressing. It would take a long time to go away.

He squeezed her fingers. “They said you saved my life.”

“You saved mine, throwing that chair and jumping between us.”

“We can spend a long time thanking each other.” He tugged her closer. “Zoe, I
want
to spend a long time thanking you. Being with you.”

Panic jumped in her chest. As emotionally exhausted as she was, she recognized another heart-wrenching moment rushing at her, one she couldn’t deal with right now. She tugged her hand away and stepped back. “Don’t!”

He smiled through a puzzled look. “Don’t what? Zoe, I’m just trying to tell you that I love you.”

Tears filled her eyes so fast everything went blurry. She blinked hard. “Don’t say that!”

The smile disappeared. He took a long, careful look at her. “Why?”

She waved a hand at the bandages. “Because you’re hurt. Because you just went through something traumatic.” She winced, knowing what she was doing was just as traumatic. To both of them. “I can’t talk about this right now.”

He studied her even as he became more withdrawn. “I can. Getting shot hasn’t changed how I feel about you.” He frowned as she chewed her lip. “But maybe
it’s changed how you feel. Unless I was wrong and you never cared as much as I hoped you did.”

Oh, God, she cared. She didn’t want to, but she did. Too much. So much she could hardly breathe. She started to lift her hand to her chest and realized she still held the newspaper. She thrust it at him, letting it fall onto his lap when he didn’t take it. “Here. Before you tell me how you feel about me, maybe you’d better review what you told everyone else.”

He glanced down at the front-page picture of the Rusty Wire and the headline “Was Restaurant Closing Intentional?” “What are you talking about? I kept you out of it.”

“Yes, you did.” He didn’t even see what was wrong in leaving her to deal with the fallout of more rumors. Just like Matt. The comparison put her in touch with the anger bubbling beneath the surface. “You completely disassociated yourself from anything I may have done to hurt my employer. And why wouldn’t you? I’m not even your type.”

He frowned. “I never said that.”

Denial, that was his defense? “Oh, you said it. Either that, or the
Echo
is making up its own quotes, and I’ve never known Gloria to do that. I suggest you refresh your memory.” The tears she’d held back were burning her eyes. She had to get out of there. “Whatever you have to say you can tell me later,” she said as she turned.

“Zoe, wait, damn it!”

She didn’t. The door closed behind her as the first tear slipped down her cheek.

•  •  •

They kept him at the hospital for two days. She knew because Cal told Maggie, who told Zoe when she
picked her up to drive to the commune four days after the shooting.

“I don’t want to know,” she said. “Today was supposed to be an escape from stress. I don’t want to think about him.”

Maggie gave her a worried look as she drove. “Are you sure that’s the right thing to do? Shouldn’t you two talk it out?”

“So I can hear his excuses?”

“So you can hear his reasons. I can’t believe Jase would throw you to the wolves.”

“But he did. He wants nothing to do with the rumors flying around about me. Don’t tell me no one in town has mentioned that the Justice Department is including me in their investigation of the Alpine Sky. That they haven’t whispered about how you never could trust Zoe Larkin to do the right thing.”