Sighs Matter (24 page)

Her mind raced. How to stop him . . . how to stop him . . . how to get back to Taylor . . .

“Get up,” Adam spat, “or I’ll put a bullet through your brain.”

“You need me,” she choked. Her mouth was so dry, speech was nearly impossible. “Without a hostage, they’ll gun you down the minute you pull the trigger.”

“Maybe,” he snarled. “But you’ll be dead, won’t you, and so will your boyfriend.”

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Officer Winslow crouched in a clearing. To his right stood another uniformed officer. On the left, a third. All had weapons trained on Adam.

Where was Taylor? Was he still lying there? Was anyone taking care of him?

Fifty years or five
. . . that’s what Betsy had said. Claire wanted the next fifty years of Taylor’s life, and dammit, she’d have it.

Winslow yelled, “Release her, LeRoy. You’ve already killed a police officer. Don’t add—”

A sob escaped Claire’s throat. It wasn’t true. It was a ploy. Please, let it be a ploy.

Another sob lodged in her throat. Tears blurred her vision as she stood and faced Adam.

“Let her go, LeRoy!” Winslow shouted. “Don’t be a fool! Kill her and we’ll be all over you!”

Sweat trickled down her back and her clothes felt damp. Her legs wobbled, her fingers shook.

Adam yelled something. He was nervous, unsure what to do, surrounded, trapped. She was his only ticket out of there, and the cops weren’t letting it happen. They were at a standoff. Something had to give.

It was all up to her.

“Adam,” she whispered. The world went silent as he glared into her eyes. Sweat dripped down his face. His eyes were red, bloodshot. His hand trembled as he trained his gun on her face.

Looking deeply into his eyes, she smiled.

He blinked, then furrowed his brow. His eyes darted about, watching her, watching the cops, watching the woods around him. He was alone and if not for her, he’d be dead.

“Adam?” she whispered again. “Listen to me.”

“Shut up!” he squealed. “You ruined everything for me. Why shouldn’t I ruin everything for you, huh? My kids, Claire. That’s all I wanted.”

He was crying now, tears slicking his face. “Ruined . . . everything . . .” he sobbed. Reaching for her, he grabbed her shirt collar with his free hand. “Head for my car,” he choked, “and don’t give me any trouble.”

He began to move, but she stayed put.

“I said come on!”

The collar of her shirt was crumpled into his fist. She would have to wait. Provoke him. If she was just patient, she’d have him.

He yanked at her collar again, bringing her to her feet. Still, she dug in and wouldn’t move. Thrusting the gun in her face, he growled, “I don’t know what you think you’re doing, but it won’t work. Now, move your ass!”

Again he yanked, and again she stood her ground. In a moment of fury, he released her and pulled his hand back to slap her. The movement threw him slightly off balance. The barrel of the gun tilted away from her face.

As soon as it did, she cupped her hands and slammed them over both his ears as hard as she could, forcing air pressure into his ear canals.

He screamed and staggered back, reeling from the pain inside his skull.

She dropped to the ground and curled into a ball to protect her chest and head.

A blur of movement rushed past her as something big tackled Adam, bringing him down with a yelp and a grunt.

She lifted her head to see Taylor wrestling with him, trying to pry the gun from his grip. The two men rolled through the grass and ferns, crashing into the trunk of a nearby tree. A fist came up and she heard a solid smack as knuckles connected with flesh.

Taylor rose up, Adam’s shirt in his clenched fingers. In a lightning-quick movement, Taylor’s fist connected with Adam’s gut, then his elbow caught Adam on the side of the head. He grunted and went limp. A second later, three police officers stood over the two men, their weapons trained on Adam’s head.

“Drop the gun!” Taylor ordered. “Now!”

Adam froze under Taylor’s knee, planted firmly against his chest. Adam snorted, then let his head drop and lowered his hand.

Taylor slammed Adam’s arm into the dirt, pried the gun from his fingers, and pushed himself to his feet. Winslow flipped the prisoner onto his stomach, yanking his arms behind his back, and cuffed him.

Pulling him roughly to his feet, Winslow shoved him toward Baker, lying flat on his stomach, his hands cuffed behind his back.

Only then did the other officers stand from their crouched positions.

Claire sat up and watched as Taylor bagged Adam’s weapon and handed it to Winslow. As he did, he raised his head and looked straight into her eyes, and smiled.

He holstered his weapon and began walking toward her. His shirt was torn, his face dirty and streaked with blood. He was rumpled and sweaty and a glory to behold.

Crouching beside her, he started to say something, but before he could get the words out, his face paled, his lashes fluttered for an instant, and he fell forward into her arms.

“Taylor,” she breathed. “What . . .”

Blood. Blood saturated his jeans. Adam’s bullet had found its mark after all and Taylor was bleeding to death, right there in her arms.

He awoke to pain. His skull throbbed and his leg was on fire. He tried to open his eyes, but his lids wouldn’t cooperate.

In the darkness, he heard the sound of someone calling his name . . . a woman. His very own. He loved her. He wanted to tell her so, but he began to fade again, and in a moment, his world ebbed back into darkness.

When he came to again, the room was silent. A dull light penetrated his closed lids, and he fluttered them open, then pinched them shut. Somebody was shining a bright light into his pupils. Though his throat was parched, he growled, “Get that goddamn light out of my eyes.”

With a little click, the beam went dark.

“Welcome back, my love.” The voice was decidedly feminine, and he recognized it. And how. “Why don’t you open your eyes again?” she urged. “I promise not to bite.”

He opened one eye to see her smiling at him. If he was lucky—and he knew he was—he hoped to see that smile every time he opened his eyes for the rest of his life.

“You a nurse?” he chided. They had come full circle, he the injured patient, she the attending physician. Would she remember?

“Ah, not nearly as good,” she said, just as she had the day they’d met. “I’m a doctor.
Your
doctor. Can you tell me your name?”

He cleared his throat and suppressed a grin. “Tell me yours first.”

She laughed a little, but it sounded husky, as though she’d been crying. “Ooo-hoo. Aren’t you the stubborn one?”

“Do I have another concussion?”

She ran her fingers through his hair. Mmm. Felt good. “Not this time, Detective,” she said. “Just a big, fat bullet to the thigh. Did a bit of damage, lost a lot of blood, but your brother gave you some of his. You’ll be up and around in no time.”

He squirmed a little, trying to get more comfortable. Damn, his leg hurt. “So I’m going to live after all, huh.”

“It’s looking that way.” She lowered her voice. “What are you thinking?”

His lips quirked into a sly grin. “I’m thinking you’re the cutest doctor I’ve ever had. What are you thinking?”

She caressed the ridge of his ear. “I’m thinking we’ve had this conversation before.”

Raising his hand, he touched his fingertips to her cheek. Softly, he said, “Tell me, Doc. Do all your patients fall in love with you?”

She moved a little closer and placed her palm tenderly on his jaw. “Only one that I can recall.”

“Smart guy. Must be a man among men.”

“Oh, he’s okay. Passably good-looking. Fairly smart. Considers himself some kind of Don Juan. Stutters when he gets excited. Very annoying.” Her brown eyes smiled down at him.

“You love him.”

“Yes.”

“But he’s a cop, right?”

“Yes.”

“How’d you come to grips with that?”

She lifted one shoulder in a small shrug. “One day, he got hurt. Nearly bled to death. For about ten minutes, I thought I’d lost him.” Looking deeply into his eyes, she murmured, “They were the longest ten minutes of my life. The most painful. And I regretted we hadn’t had more time together, that I had been keeping us apart.”

She tilted her head and he realized she had tears in her eyes. “I came to the conclusion that I’d rather take my chances than spend one more minute away from him. When you love someone the way I love him, it’s all or nothing.” Looking deeply into his eyes, she whispered, “I choose all.”

He stuck out his lower lip as though he was considering her words. “Has he asked you to marry him?”

In a little singsong way, she said, “No, but he will. Any second now.”

“You’re very sure of yourself.”

“Not really. But I am very sure of him.”

“Sounds to me like he adores you.”

“Ya
think
?”

He slipped his hand around her neck to pull her down for his kiss. Against her soft lips, he murmured, “I
know
.”

It was a double wheelchair ceremony.

Claire’s brother, Zach, arrived a couple of days before the wedding with his girlfriend, Mary Rose, a lovely woman Claire liked immediately. For the nuptials, Mary Rose had decorated Zach’s chair with flowers and ribbons, while Claire had done the same for Taylor’s, even though he’d be leaving his behind eventually. Each day, his leg got stronger, and soon, he’d graduate to a crutch or a cane. The prognosis was good; all he needed was physical therapy and time.

After the wedding, the celebration had gone on all night, but the best man and matron of honor had to leave early to get home in time to feed four-week-old Molly Claire McKennitt, the gurgling delight of everyone’s life.

Betsy had held on long enough for her and Soldier to be airlifted to the hospital, where Molly had entered the world screaming her lungs out, to be immediately placed in her dumbstruck father’s arms. It was love at first sight, and by all accounts, it was mutual.

The bullet that had torn up Taylor’s leg might have kept him from walking around for a bit, but it hadn’t even slowed him down in the bedroom, as evidenced by Claire’s wedding dress, which now lay draped over a chair in their honeymoon suite. A small fire crackled in the fireplace, taking the chill off the early autumn evening.

Naked, Claire nestled in her new husband’s arms, and ran her finger over his bare chest until he wrapped his fingers around her wrist.

“Stop it.” He chuckled. “That tickles.”

She sighed and snuggled closer. “No it doesn’t. You just want me to quit playing around and get on with it.”

“Goal-oriented bastard that I am.” He sighed. “Just like all men. Damn our rotten hides.”

“Speaking of which.” Claire chuckled. “Did I tell you Aunt Sadie and Flynn are getting married? They’re going to wait until after Mort and Adam’s trials so they can make their honeymoon into a fishing trip to Canada.”

“Yeah.” Taylor sighed. “Poor old Mort didn’t get very far. They nabbed him just this side of the Canadian border with everything he could stuff in his Cadillac.” Then he scowled. “Sadie’s marrying Flynn, huh. A Fed in the family? I feel sick.”

She smacked him. “A
retired
Fed. And you like Flynn. If it hadn’t been for him, Betsy would never have gotten out of there alive. And the baby . . . God, I shudder to think.”

He nodded, then bent and placed a kiss on her nose. “Yeah, poor washout Kevin LeRoy. Didn’t get his M.D., didn’t get the girl, and didn’t even score big in the previously owned bones department.”

“But now he’s in the joint.”

Taylor arched a brow. “That was pathetic.”

Claire chuckled. “Hey, I’ve always been very
humerus
.”

He let his head fall back as he laughed and she admired, and not for the first time, his strong neck, smooth muscles, sexy . . . well, everything.

Snuggling closer, she let herself enjoy the feel of his body next to hers, the warmth of his skin. She placed a kiss on his chest and sighed with more contentment than she’d ever dreamed possible.

“Oh,” he said. “I almost forgot. I have a wedding present for you.”

Reaching over the edge of the bed, he brought up a rectangular object wrapped in silver paper with curly white ribbons. He handed it to Claire as she sat up.

“It’s almost too pretty to unwrap,” she said. “Thank you.”

Taylor stretched out and put his hands behind his head. “You haven’t even seen it yet.”

“But it’s a painting, isn’t it?”

He nodded. “Open it.”

Slipping the ribbon off one edge, she picked off the tape and slowly unwrapped the gift. As she turned it over, her breath caught in her throat and she knew without a doubt she was going to cry for a long, long time.

When she didn’t say anything, Taylor scooted up next to her. “Sadie found the photograph for me. I used that. She said you were about five. Do you remember—”

“I remember,” she whispered, her throat too tight to speak. “God, I remember.”

The day had been sunny and Grandpa had tossed her in the wheelbarrow and rolled her out to the fields, laughing and squealing. They’d ended up at the pond where they’d thrown dry bread to the ducks. Grandma had been alive then, and she’d snapped a photograph of them just before they’d headed up the path. Taylor had captured that moment in oils. Grandpa’s eyes gleamed with life and laughter, his smile huge and warm, while Claire, in a blue denim jumper, was laughing, her long hair in pigtails, her small hands gripping the side of the wheelbarrow, hanging on for dear life.

“Thank you,” she choked again. “It’s . . . perfect.”

He smoothed his palm along her arm. “I saw the look on your face when you lost Grandpa’s wheelbarrow. The thing was ugly and weighed a ton, but I could see what it meant to you. I knew right then, I was going to find some way to replace it for you, if only on canvas.”

Bending her head, she kissed him, and it was the sweetest kiss she had ever known. When she raised her head, he said, “Are you sure you’re okay with all this? I can take a desk job, if you want.”

She shook her head and looked deeply into his glittering blue eyes, eyes that would never, ever cease to fascinate and attract her.

“No,” she said. “I’m okay. When you got shot, when you fell, my heart . . . changed. As you came through the trees, came after me, your weapon drawn, your eyes steady, focused, I knew at that moment you were doing exactly what you were born to do. I don’t have the
right
to ask you to change. How arrogant and selfish of me it would be to demand such a thing.”

He kissed her again and grinned. “I only offered because I knew you’d say that.”

She laughed and set the painting carefully on the nightstand, then slipped her arms around his neck. In a light, breathy voice, she said, “I know.”

Blinking down at her, his mouth quirked into a sexy, flirty grin, and she knew she was in for it.

“Hey, b-b-b-baby,” he murmured as he settled between her thighs. “You want to see something swell?”