Kathi S Barton - [Aaron's Kiss 04] (2 page)

I don’t want to have to hurt you, but I will if you don’t listen to me. Now, I’m telling you again to leave.”

Sam knew that he was not going to leave. She also knew that he had full intentions of killing her and everyone else in the room until he got the information he wanted. She watched for the slightest movement, the indicator that said when he was about to shoot.

When it came, she moved to counterattack, keep everyone safe, and if all possible, keep herself not dead.

When he raised the gun to fire, Sam lunged toward him, knocking his gun away from her chest with a hand to his wrist, knocking it and the gun toward the floor. She knew that she had to disarm him or he would pull the other gun she knew he had hidden in his back. Someone was going to get hurt. She hoped it wasn’t anyone she knew. Just as she started to throw him to the left and then to the floor, he pulled the trigger, the sound of it like thunder in the tiny room. The slight pain registered, but she didn’t have time right now to deal with it. Sam still needed to get him disarmed and everyone to safety.

Sam brought her foot down hard along his shin, tearing skin and grinding her booted heel across his shin and into the top of his foot. Then she slammed her elbow into his ribs, causing him to drop the gun. When he tried to grab a handful of her hair to jerk her around, she brought her forehead back then forward to hit his jaw, breaking the mandible and knocking him unconscious. He dropped like a dead weight. Sam staggered a little from the impact of hitting his head with hers and then sat down hard on the floor. She needed to lean back against the wall to take an inventory of her own body.

The two women rushed her and she raised her hand to stop them. She was in no mood to meet and greet right now. They stopped dead in their tracks. Sam grinned.

Okay, she thought, probably should have dropped the gun and wiped off the blood first. If someone had pointed a bloodied, armed hand at her, she probably would have stopped too. Looking down at her leg, she realized she had been shot.

“Well shit a brick and build a house.” The women moved closer. “Don’t touch me. I

...just don’t touch me. Oh God, I’m gonna be sick.” Sam backed closer to the wall again and crawled her way up, using it to pull herself to a standing position. Then she staggered her way to the back room, her hand covering her mouth as she went.

Blood was soaking her jeans now. Also, it was all the way down her leg and into her boot. There was a thin trail of it following her as she walked away. The wall she had leaned against had a bloody handprint, as did the counter and the doorway to the back where she had had to stop and steady herself. She knew that people wouldn’t notice, but right now, her late breakfast was coming back for a second appearance. When she had sicked up everything in the tiny bathroom off the kitchen, she made her way upstairs to her apartment.

Lt. David Wolff showed up about five minutes later. Sam could see his cruiser as it pulled into the lot from her bedroom window. The light flashing probably told the entire neighborhood. She went down the stairs and watched from her vantage point just inside the foyer—the area between her apartment and the kitchen.

The man, Mr. Ship, had been tied to a chair in her kitchen with duct tape, and Betty was standing over him with a large cast iron skillet in her hand, arms crossed over her ample chest. Sam wondered where the pan had come from, but realized that was the least of her problems. He was still unconscious, or at least he was now. Sam smiled again. Betty could be a bit overprotective of Sam when it wasn’t really necessary. But Sam loved her for it.

“Where’s Sam at, Betty? Is she all right?” David demanded again. “You didn’t do a very good job of cleaning up the blood; there are streaks of it everywhere. And since Mr. Ship here has his head bashed in and would be dead with that amount of blood loss, I’m assuming it must be Sam who’s bleeding.” Sam had known David for nearly three years now. She was pretty sure he knew what she did on the side, rescuing women and children from an abusive situation and making sure they were safe. But they stayed out of each other’s way. This was the first time someone had come to her about their missing family and she didn’t like knowing someone knew where she worked and lived. She would have to be more careful in the future and also see how Mr. Ship found her so quickly. If he could, then she was reasonably sure others could as well. Sam was sure other spouses would be just as curious as Mr. Ship had been.

“Don’t rightly know what you’re talking about, Officer Wolff. Sam ain’t been here all day.” He just looked at her, and then at the man in the chair. Sam had to stifle a laugh. Betty, it seemed, could be just as stubborn as her boss when it suited her.

“You telling me you did this? You knocked this man unconscious and tied him to the chair? What did he do, Betty? Make fun of the cookies you sell? Not bloody likely.

Please tell me where Sam is. You don’t want me calling in other officers to search this place, do you?”

“I’m here, I did it.” Sam walked into her kitchen. “Sally, can you see that these two women are taken care of for me, please?” When no one moved, not even her employees, she huffed before she turned back to David. “He was here for some woman named Paula, his wife, he said. He drew a gun and I disarmed him. And just in the event that he tried anything while I was gone, Betty here...subdued him.” Sam noticed that David looked at the two women and realized he knew them, knew them quite well, it seemed. Sam closed her eyes against the drain the pain was causing her. It didn’t help that she had to keep blocking one or both of the women from tapping into her head.

“We were here, David. We saw the whole thing, so I’m sure you’d like us to stick around a bit longer, right?” the dark-haired woman informed David. “It was self-defense, she wasn’t lying about that. He drew on her first. She’s also shot, bleeding pretty good too.” Sam glared at the woman, hoping she would shut the hell up.

Sam had changed her pants and although she was limping, there was no telltale sign that she had been wounded. At least she hoped so. She had wrapped the wound up before pulling on a fresh pair of pants. The wound was deep and the bullet was still in it, but she didn’t have time to mess with it right now. As soon as everyone left, she would fix it. She just hoped the blood didn’t seep through before the cop noticed and the nosey women left. Sam thought that it was a lost cause as soon as David spoke again.

“Shot? What happened here, Sam? Where are you hurt? Where did he shoot you?

Damn it, woman, why the hell didn’t you tell me first thing?” Sam saw David’s nose flare and she realized that he couldn’t smell her. Good, at least something was going right.

Sam knew that David was a were and could probably smell blood as soon as he walked in the tiny shop. Sam had hoped that he would have thought it was Mr. Ship’s and not hers. No hope for that, thanks to little Miss Helpful Customer. Sam turned back to her to glare once again. She wasn’t ever going to get a discount, she thought.

“Nope, I’m fine. This nice lady is mistaken, nothing wrong with me.” Sam wished that everyone would go away so she could go back upstairs. “If you’ve come here to pick up the cupcakes, then Sally can help you with that, and out of the front door.” She was being rude, but at this point, really didn’t care. Pain was pulsing through her at an alarming rate. And she was afraid she was going to be sick again.

The bossy woman was not the least bit intimidated by Sam’s rudeness, nor by her look, it appeared to Sam. The woman simply stepped forward, making Sam make a hasty retreat back a few steps. When she reached out and grabbed where the bullet had entered Sam’s thigh, jamming her thumb into the wound itself, pain shot though Sam like a knife, and she moaned from the fresh pain, blood oozing from the now opened wound.

“You fucking bitch,” Sam hissed at her. Dizziness swamped her and she reached out and grabbed the first thing she could reach, which happened to be the woman who had hurt her. Now Sam was swamped with pain and the woman’s thoughts. They were both dizzying and profoundly scary, this woman’s thoughts. Sam let her go and slumped to the floor.

“Yes, would you like to tell me again how I was wrong about you being wounded?

You’ve lost a good deal of blood and you need medical attention before you pass out.

Now, do I take you to the hospital or do we call an ambulance? Because, either way, you are getting that looked at even if I have to take your ass there myself.” The woman hadn’t raised her voice, which under normal circumstances would have impressed Sam, but pain was making her short tempered and lightheaded. The images she was pulling from the woman showed her to be a mate to a vampire. She had two children and she was one powerful bitch, along with way too much information for her to sort right now.

“I want you to mind your own damned business is what’s going to happen. I’m fine,” Sam said with a hiss of pain. When Sam turned back to David, she said, “Mr. Ship came into my shop demanding to talk to Sam Hunter, a male Sam Hunter, and I told him I didn’t know who he was talking about. He pulled a gun, it went off, and I disarmed him, end of story. Now, I am closed. It’s been an eventful morning, and I’m going home.” She turned to leave, but got no more than two feet way when she slipped into a black void, knowing, just knowing that that nosey woman had something to do with it.

~CHAPTER TWO~

When Sam woke up, she looked around the room trying to figure out where she was, but as nothing looked familiar, she knew that she was not home. The room was huge and beautifully decorated; everything was old but very well maintained. The only thing she was actually concerned with was her lack of gun and that her body hurt beyond all good reason. The rest, she decided she could fix.

There was an IV in her left arm that was hooked up to a glucose bag. She was also dressed in a nightshirt that she had never seen before and was not even going to think about who might have dressed her in it. There was a phone by the bed, but until she knew where she was, using it was out of the question. No telling who or what might be at the other end.

Sam carefully pulled the needle from the back of her hand. Then she began a survey of the damage to herself before swinging her legs to the side of the bed. She fought through the dizziness by taking deep breaths while her eyes were closed. The pain she could almost manage, but it was hard—the pain in her leg was incredible. The bullet must have hit one of the deep muscles in her thigh. But running her hand lightly over the bandage, she realized that someone had removed the bullet and had stitched her up.

She knew from the touch that the last person to touch the bandage was a male, a vampire. She worked slowly to get her butt to the edge of the mattress so that standing up would be easier, at least in theory, she thought with a wary grin.

When she was finally able to stand with the aid of one of the posts on the big bed, she had to really concentrate on not passing out. Using the walls as support, she made her way slowly to what she hoped was the bathroom; it was the closest doorway from the bed. If it was not then she was going to have a hard time explaining to whoever owned this house why she was in the closet. When she opened the door, she nearly whimpered when she discovered she was right, and went inside.

As she eased herself down onto the toilet seat to rest, she laid her head on the double vanity to wait for the room to stop spinning and hopefully the pain to recede at least a little. She really didn’t hold out much hope of either happening anytime soon—

she hadn’t even had the energy to lift the lid, much less get up and move again to pee.

As she lay there contemplating on how she was going to get home when she couldn’t even pee, she heard someone clear their throat close to where the door was. She didn’t move to speak, but stayed where she was.

“I’d like my clothes, if you don’t mind. And I noticed my gear is missing. So if you’d be so kind as to give it back, I’d appreciate that. I’m sorry about the mess here, but as I don’t know you or where I’m at, I’ll assume this is one of the two women’s houses from…is today still Thursday? Anyway, I didn’t ask to be brought here, so I can’t be held responsible for what happens while I am here.” Sam knew she was babbling. It was either that or scream down the house.

When nothing was forthcoming, she turned her head slightly without lifting it to the figure in the door jam.

He was a smallish man, not tiny, just small of stature, and he was holding a very large bed tray filled with what smelled like coffee. Her belly gave a slight jump at the thought of food. Shit! He continued to stare at her as if he couldn’t believe she was in his bathroom. Quirking a brow at him, she wondered if he was human.

“Well? Do I have a wart on my head or do you not speak English? Sprechen Sie Deutsch? How about Parlez-vous du français? ¿Habla usted español?, Вы говорите на

русском языке? You need to work with me here, buddy. I hurt like hell and I’d like to go home.”

“English. I speak English. The others as well, but I prefer English. Miss, are you well? Should you be up as yet? The doctor said it would be several days yet before you would be up and about. Not to mention that you wouldn’t even be awake until at least tomorrow. I have found that Doctor Reilly is rarely incorrect in these matters. Shall I call him back and inform him of your recovery?”

Wow
, Sam thought, he sounded just like her tenth grade English teacher, all prim and proper. “No, no need to call him or anyone else for that matter. But you should know that…well, I’m really a stubborn sort. And I seldom follow orders. They make me crazy. I’d really like my gun and my clothes back.” Sam was not going to tell this man that she had been hurt worse and this was not her first gunshot wound, nor would it likely be her last. She just stared at him until he answered.

“I do not believe them to be dry as yet, miss. There was quite a bit of blood on them so I washed them twice in hopes of getting them clean for you. There was nothing I could do for your boots, however. I believe them to be completely ruined. Doctor Mercer, a human doctor, was quite adamant about you having plenty to drink when you awoke. I have brought you some juice and things for you to drink to replenish your blood supply. I think…I believe that you have opened the wound again. He will be most displeased about that. Her ladyship as well, I’m sure.” As he fussed about the bedroom after laying down the tray, he continued his one-sided conversation with her. Sam tuned him out and tried to figure out the complexities of getting up, peeing, and going back into the room and getting dressed to leave. She felt it was just too much right now and stayed where she was, at least for a few more minutes.