Looking For Trouble (40 page)

"No, no no..." Wade murmured, then yelled
her name and ran toward her when he saw her attack Ray. He stumbled
and his heart stopped when he saw Ray slice her throat, and bright
red blood flowed down her neck and stained her shirt. With a roar,
he held Angel tightly against him and tried to push through the
crowd of agents that rushed her and Ray.

After they jerked Ray Turner to his feet and
shoved his face into the wall to cuff him, the crowd separated a
little and he saw a couple of people on their knees, and pushed
over there, then his world came crashing down around his ears. Jess
was laying there in a pool of blood, her hair was soaked with it,
and one of the men had taken his suit coat off and was applying
pressure to her throat, and another was on his cell phone yelling
at whoever was on the other end for a medical flight
immediately.

With a weak moan, Wade took a step then sank
to his knees, because it felt like someone had hit him in the head
with a bat, his ears were buzzing and he felt light headed. Angel
squirmed in his arms and he snuggled her up to his neck. Someone
tried to take Angel from his arms, and he jerked away then sat down
on the floor to rock her, and watch Jess, the love of his life,
bleed to death, because there was nothing he could do to help
her.

He didn't know how long he sat there, but a
woman and man in flight suits, shoved the guy who'd been helping
her aside then went to work on Jess, and had her on a backboard and
all kind of monitors very quickly. Then the woman looked at the man
with a serious expression, and they picked her up and almost ran
for the stairway. He shoved up to his feet and walked quickly
behind them, but by the time he took the elevator to the top floor,
then climbed the stairs to the roof, they'd taken off.

Jess became aware of a constant beeping
sound, because it was driving her crazy, it felt like it was
piercing her brain. She tried to open her eyes, but couldn't, and
it was really hard for her to swallow, her mouth felt like
sandpaper was in there.

"Water," she croaked, then flinched as the
pain shot through her skull. Every cell in Jess's body ached, and
her neck felt like she had whiplash or something, it was so
sore.

"Open your eyes, baby...look at me, Jess,"
Wade said near her ear in a raw worried voice, and she tried to
open her eyes, but they didn't want to cooperate, it felt like they
weren't working in tandem. A cool wet rag swept over her lips and
it felt so good, she moaned and tried to lick the rag, but it was
pulled away. "More," she begged and tried to open her eyes
again.

"I can't darlin', until you wake up and they
say it's okay," he told her then said, "Angel wants you to hold
her, Jess...you need to wake up, baby."

Jess sucked in a breath, then focused and
managed to get one eye open, then the other followed it and bright
light pierced her eyes like a knife and she shut them with a groan.
"Turn off the lights," she said weakly.

She heard Wade walk away from the bed, then
he came right back and said, "Okay, open them again," then he
stroked her cheek.

"My head hurts so bad," she moaned, then
tried to open her eyes again, and when she got them open, Wade was
leaning over the bed, and his were red-rimmed and filled with fear.
She tried to smile at him, and one side jacked up a little, then
she whispered hoarsely, "Hey, you...what the hell is wrong with
me?"

Wade swallowed hard, then asked her, "You
don't remember?"

Jess tried to unscramble the mess of her
thoughts and make some sense of them, then she said, "Ray...did
they catch him?"

"Yeah they caught him...but not before
he..." Wade swallowed again and sucked in a breath, then said, "Not
before he cut your neck...and then the agents accidentally slammed
you into the wall, when they tackled him."

"So, I cracked my noggin? That explains why
it feels like someone is doing roadwork in there, I guess..."

"You fractured your skull pretty bad, and
Ray nicked your carotid artery, with that knife. You almost bled to
death, sugar...I thought I was watching you die," he told her in a
choked voice, then grabbed her hand and kissed her palm, "If that
flight crew hadn't gotten you to the hospital so quickly, you
probably would have."

"I'm sorry, I scared you," she told him
weakly, then asked him, "Should I give you my 'move on' speech
now?" Jess remembered that incident, it was something she'd never
forget, no matter how hard she hit her head.

"Oh, god, please don't," he begged her and
his eyes filled up. "I know what I did to you now...and I'm so
sorry."

Jess looked around the room at all the
flowers lining every available space. "You open a flower shop while
I was out?"

"No, the story about what happened made
national news, because Take My Breath Away went to number one
yesterday...Mr. Zucker said something about platinum. Some of the
flowers are from me, but most are from fans...there's a whole other
room down the hall filled with them."

"Holy, crap!" she said loudly then tried to
sit up and gasped, then laid back down and closed her eyes because
it hurt too bad to do otherwise. "That's a lot of flowers, how long
have I been out?"

"Two days...the longest two days of my
life," he told her then leaned down and kissed her forehead, then
stayed there and told her, "I thought I was going to lose you, and
it scared the shit out me."

"Where's Angel? I need to see her..." Jess
told him as the memories of what happened came flooding back to
her, "You rescued her right? I saw her in your arms before I lit
into Ray."

"She's with Cole and Sabrina, at a hotel
down the road...they'll bring her up here later."

"I want to see her now, please..." she asked
him as emotion flooded through her, and tears burned her eyes.

A tear trickled from her eye and slid down
her cheek, and Wade wiped it away with his thumb, then told her,
"I'll call them to bring her up here now."

Jess was in the hospital for another four
days, and was so glad to see the outdoors again, when they wheeled
her outside, she wanted to get up from the wheelchair and kiss the
ground. She kissed Angel's cheek instead, and held her tight, while
Wade opened the door of the taxi waiting for them outside the
hospital

He walked back over and took Angel from her,
then put her in the car seat, before he came back to her, and
locked the brake on the wheelchair. Instead of helping her up, of
course her he-man cowboy had to pick her up and carry her to the
car, then he put her on the seat and buckled the seatbelt. He went
around the car and patted the roof, then slid inside himself.

"Our flight is in two hours...we're going
home, baby," he told her with that sexy grin that set her panties
on fire.

"I can't wait to be back in Bowie, darlin',"
she said, but what she really wanted was to be herself again, so
she could go on tour. There was still time for her to make it, if
she recovered quickly. Mr. Zucker had called told her he had a
fill-in, until she got back on her feet, but she didn't want to
push her luck.

Their flight landed in Dallas right on time,
and they got the truck, then made the trip to the Double B in
record time, but Wade didn't stop there, he drove on by, and she
cast a curious look over at him. "Where you going, darlin'?"

"Home..." he said shortly, then turned down
another road and drove a little ways, before making a turn onto a
rutted dirt driveway. When he pulled up in front of the gorgeous
ranch-style house that until then had been a paper fantasy, she
gasped and tears rushed to her eyes.

"Oh, my god, baby...our house is done!" Jess
squealed and threw open her door, then slid to the ground. The
Earth moved a little under her feet, and she grabbed the door
fighting back a wave of nausea the doctor told her would go away in
a week or two.

"Whoa!" Wade yelled then jumped down and ran
around to scoop her up in his arms. "You need to take it easy,
sugar..." he said then kissed her hair and started walking toward
the house.

When he got there, he reached down and
grabbed the knob, then flung the door open, and carried her over
the threshold, then sat her down on her feet and kissed her
tenderly. "Welcome home, sweetheart."

Jess jumped when a horde of people filed out
of the kitchen led by Jazzie, and they all yelled, "Welcome home,
Jess!" Tears filled her eyes and she covered her mouth with her
trembling hand, as she walked around the house and saw the whole
house was finished,
and
furnished...ready to live in...there
were even curtains in the windows.

"How, did you..." she whispered in
amazement.

"The contractor finished it, and your
friends furnished it for us, while we were in Nashville," Wade told
her, then said, "I'm going get Angel...be right back," before he
sprinted out the door again.

"Oh, my god, it's so gorgeous...thank you
guys!" she said and the happy tears she'd been holding back flooded
down her cheeks.

Jazzie walked up and hugged her, "You really
do have good friends here, Jess...everyone helped."

"I"m blown away..." she told her friend and
hugged her tightly, then lifted up and told everyone, "Thank you so
much."

Cassie, Luke, Cole, Sabrina, Gabe and
Karlie, Katie, and everyone else just grinned at her. She looked
across the huge living room and saw Denver, Tony and Mike had set
up some instruments in the corner and were adjusting things. She
wondered what the hell they were doing. "We gonna play a set?" she
asked them with a chuckle, then added, "I'm not sure I'm up for
that just yet."

Denver looked at Tony, then smiled and told
her, "We're playing, you're gonna listen, think you're up for
that?"

"As long as you go easy on the drums, yeah,"
she told him.

"I can do that," he told her, then winked at
Jazzie and she walked over and picked up her fiddle.

Wade walked back inside with Angel, and
handed her off to Sabrina, then walked over to the band, and Jess
looked at him curiously. He had a mysterious smile on his lips, and
she wondered what all this was about. She felt like she'd stepped
into an alternate universe.

Cole came up behind her and walked her over
to the sofa facing where they'd set up, and told her, "You just sit
here and relax, sugar," then everyone took seats around the room,
and all of them had mysterious smiles on their faces now. Sabrina's
eyes were teary, and so was Cassie's.

Jess gasped when Wade walked up to the mike
and tapped it twice, then looked over his shoulder at Denver and
nodded. Her heart almost stopped, when Den hit the first few beats
of Aerosmith's Angel, and Wade took the mike off the stand and
walked over to stand in front of her. With perfect timing, he
started the song in his rich mellow voice and her heart skittered
around in her chest like a pinball. Emotion closed off her throat,
and Jess had a hard time catching a full breath.

He was fricking singing their song to her!
And he was doing a fantastic job of it too! When he got to the last
line, he laid on the sexuality like she did, and tingles started at
her scalp and worked their way down to her toes. Her hair was
standing on end and her whole body was tingling, by the time the
last note echoed in the room, and he walked back over to put the
mike on the stand. Wade turned back around and walked over to the
sofa to stand in front of her again, then he reached in his pocket
and dropped to one knee in front of her, and took her hand in
his.

"Jess, will you save me tonight, baby? Will
you marry me, and be my angel every day for the rest of our
lives?"

She finally let the breath she'd been
holding go, and then threw herself in his arms and hugged his neck.
He fell back on his butt with her in his arms, kissing his face all
over, then she found his lips and poured out all the love pouring
through her for this rough riding, sexy, tough, and oh so wonderful
cowboy she'd had the luck to choose as her angel.

Everyone was quiet in the room when she
pulled back and told him, "Yes, cause all I need from this world is
my angel and baby girl," then they all erupted in whoops, hollers
and applause for the best performance by a man asking a woman to
marry him.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Becky McGraw is a married mother of three
adult children, and a Southern girl by birth and the grace of God,
ya'll. One of several career changes transplanted Becky and her
family to Indiana, where she now lives with her husband and dog
Abby.

A jack of many trades in her life, Becky has
been an optician, a beautician, a legal secretary, a senior project
manager for an aviation management consulting firm, which took her
all over the United States, a real estate broker, and now a graphic
artist, web designer and writer.

She knows just enough about a variety of
topics to make her dangerous, and her romance novels interesting
and varied. Being a graphic artist is a good thing for her too,
because she creates her own cover art, along with writing the
novels.

Becky has been an avid reader of romance
novels since she was a teenager, and has been known to read up to
four novels of that genre a week, much to the dismay of her
husband, and the delight of e-book sellers.