Looking for Trouble

by Becky McGraw

She scanned the lobby and didn’t see Wade, but she heard Ray curse behind her, then he shoved her to the left and down a hall. Looking back over her shoulder, she spotted Wade then by the front door with Angel in his arms, standing with several agents, who had a brunette, that wasn’t Bonnie, between them.

  A loud wail of relief surged from Jess’s lips and she tried to yank away from Ray to run over there, but he pulled her back against him, and moved the knife to her throat. Wade spotted her and started running over there, then he stopped in his tracks and looked down at Angel, then back into her eyes. Jess saw the war he was waging inside as to what to do, come save her, or make sure their daughter was safe. Finally, he narrowed his eyes and started forward again.

  Jess shook her head and decided to take the choice away from him, because she didn’t want him to do what he was about to do, and put Angel in danger, or get himself hurt again. She bent her knee then planted the heel of her high-heeled boot in Ray’s instep, and shoved her elbow into his gut.

  Ray grunted, but didn’t let her go, he moved the knife to the side of her throat and there was a sharp sting when he sliced it across her skin. Warm blood flowed down her neck, and she spun around, then planted her fist in his eye socket, putting all her weight behind it, and his head hit the wall hard. Suddenly a group of people rushed them, and she was slammed into the wall, then her head hit the hard marble, and it sounded like someone rang a gong by her ear as pain exploded in her head, before she slid down the wall and darkness overcame her.

  “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 hour
s…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.

  She has been writing fictional short stories and novels for fun, as well as technical copy for her jobs for many years. She was a member of the Writer’s Guild on AOL during her last venture into writing romance, as well as a founding member and treasurer of the first online chapter of the Romance Writers of America, From the Heart Romance Writers.

  With the advancement of online publishing opportunities, Becky has started writing again as voraciously as she reads. Be looking for all of the books in her Texas Trouble Series, a contemporary cowboy romance series, with hot cowboys, a dash of suspense, and a lot of southern flavor.

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  Be sure to read the first three books in the Texas Trouble Series, by Becky McGraw, MY KIND OF TROUBLE (#1, Texas Trouble), THE TROUBLE WITH LOVE (#2 Texas Trouble), and DOUBLE THE TROUBLE (#3, Texas Trouble)

  READ EXCERPTS BELOW

  MY KIND OF TROUBLE

  by Becky McGraw, Texas Trouble Series #1

  Copyright @ June 18, 2012

  Cassie Bellamy thought she’d left Bowie, Texas and Luke Matthews behind for good. She’d been gone for ten years and in that time had built a successful real estate business, had a new fiancé, and had all but forgotten about the Texas bad boy who’d sent her running to Phoenix in the first place.

  She wouldn’t be going back now, but her daddy needed her at the Double B.

  Driving her old pickup truck “Bessie” back to Bowie had seemed like a good idea when she’d left Phoenix, but it didn’t seem so good when she was broken down on the side of the road in ninety plus Texas weather in between Bowie and her daddy’s farm. And it seemed an even worse idea when her knight in brown khaki turned ou
t to be none other than the bad boy himself, a Sheriff now, and still as hot as the Texas sun.