He’d find her and guard dog Izzie and help them blow up balloons or paint posters or whatever they needed. Then he was taking his woman and his son home to the rest of his family, where they belonged.
88
ALLEN WAS JUST LOCKING up his office when he heard the first sounds. He suspected what they were within seconds.
He hurried down the stairs. His office was directly above the women’s charity where Lacy, Jillian, and Nikkie Jean spent so much of their time.
Sometimes abusive husbands had found their way there; even in the short time the charity had been open for business.
He always kept an ear out for problems downstairs. He had ever since a man had set the old building on fire and nearly killed him, Rafe, Ariella, and Jillian.
Allen learned from the past, that was for sure.
Never had there been gunshots before.
Allen pulled out his phone and quickly called 911. The TSP was operational again after the storm, but they were still stretched thin.
Just like every other group dedicated to helping others—the storm had tasked every resource available.
He hurried down the stairs toward the front office of the W4HAV. It was past six now. None of the medical offices in the building would still be seeing patients. And the rest of the offices on the second floor had closed, relocating to the larger building next door for a better price. Travis Worthington-Deane, Lacy Deane’s husband and the landlord of the building, had been trying to clear out the second and first floors for the charity his wife and sisters-in-law were so involved in. They were planning to expand rapidly.
Allen was most likely the only one still on the third floor.
So that meant whatever was happening, it was happening at W4HAV. Nikkie Jean, Jillian, or Lacy were probably there. One of them usually was this time of night.
He wasn’t about to leave one of them in trouble.
Allen wasn’t stupid. He crept up to the glass doors and peered inside.
To see Wallace Henedy brandishing a gun as he loomed over Nikkie Jean.
Ice shot straight through him.
Allen didn’t have a clue what to do next.
And then his gaze landed on the woman next to Nikkie Jean.
And the rapidly spreading blood.
89
NIKKIE JEAN FOCUSED ON stopping the bleeding. Everything else had to be secondary at the moment. She was 99.999 percent certain the bullets had missed any major arteries. If it had, Izzie would have already passed out by now. “I don’t think it hit the arteries, Iz.”
“That’s good,” Wallace said. “You’ll need something to close the wound for now. There should be needles in that kit.”
Nikkie Jean had already pulled them out. “The bullets exited cleanly. Nothing jagged. But you’ll definitely have a cool scar or two. Everett will want to see.”
“I’ll have to show him.” Izzie was staying calm. Probably calmer than Nikkie Jean. But Izzie had just seen more. Most of Nikkie Jean’s work was done in an operating room. With schedules and supplies and routine.
Nothing like this.
And she didn’t even know why. “Can you put the gun down, Wallace? You’re making me really nervous here.”
“Is there any lidocaine in there? You’re going to want to put something on her before you set the stitches. Otherwise, she’ll be hurting too much to stay still.”
So helpful. Gee, she never would have expected it out of him. “Why did you want to shoot…us?”
“I didn’t. Just wanted to talk.” He was pacing—in front of the only real exit they had. There were windows with a fire exit—but they were clear across the lobby. Forty feet away.
And locked up tight. Ariella’s oldest brother was a stickler for security. The man designed security tech for a living after all.
There were exits at the rear, but those were out of reach, too.
She was just thankful that she and Izzie were the only ones in the building now. Although… Ariella and her brother Luc had joined Jillian outside just moments before Wallace Henedy had burst in.
Five minutes earlier and all of those big, strong, armed bodyguards would have been right there.
What she wouldn’t give for one of them right now.
Nikkie Jean hoped Ariella had forgotten her purse and sent one of those armed guards back for it or something.
Izzie had lost far too much blood.
“What about?”
“Questions. The storm. And about the past. What you know.”
“I don’t know anything about your past. Why would I?”
“Because I had an affair with your mother twenty-eight years ago and with your father’s assistant fifteen years ago. And I know he’s coming out here. If he puts it together, I’m not going to be able to give Jennifer what she really wants.”
“What is that?”
“To be mayor. To be someone she thinks is important.”
“What does that have to do with my mother?”
Nikkie Jean couldn’t think of anything else to do but talk. She had to either get the gun away from him—or get herself and Izzie out.
Somehow.
She had no idea how to do either.
“This is your father’s gun, Dannica. I won it off of him when you were around five or so. I was in and out of your house for years. I’m surprised you didn’t recognize me.”
“I’ve forgotten a lot of my childhood. Shut it out on purpose. Can we at least put her in the hallway? Where someone can get to her? I’ll stay, right here.” She stitched up the smallest injury as quickly as possible. Izzie gasped, but didn’t cry out.
She didn’t seem to have the breath to.
Izzie was extremely asthmatic, especially in times of physical distress. And one bullet had most likely hit a lung. She needed help; fast. “I think it’s punctured a lung. She needs to be across the street.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. I’m not letting go of the gun, and you are far too small to lift her. It wouldn’t be good for you or the baby.”
Why did he care about that? Unless he hadn’t meant to hurt her. But how that was supposed to help her, Nikkie Jean didn’t have a clue.
“We have to do something. Maybe we can put her in the desk chair? Roll her out? Wallace, we’re doctors. We made a vow to help people. Patients. Well, do something.”
“Yes, we did. Didn’t we?” He stepped closer. Until he was looming over where she knelt next to Izzie. He held the gun steady, then reached down.
His hand wrapped around Izzie’s. “Stay there,” he ordered Nikkie Jean.
He yanked Izzie to her feet.
Izzie cried out.
Then Wallace was dragging her toward the door.
Nikkie Jean tried to follow.
He turned the gun toward her and fired. Nikkie Jean covered her stomach and hit the ground as Izzie screamed again.
90
WALLACE RECOGNIZED THE man in the hallway the instant he yanked open the doors. It was all over now. Allen Jacobson would bring the cops for sure. If he hadn’t already.
Jacobson was a smart man, after all.
And he’d seen…Wallace with the gun.
It was all over now for him. Jennifer would find out.
Hell, of course, she would. Wallace had just shot a young woman, after all.
He’d had some stupid plan of shooting himself and somehow making it seem like Nikkie Jean was responsible.
Like he’d frightened her and she’d shot him with her father’s gun.
The logistics of it hadn’t made sense even to him. But Wallace just hadn’t been thinking straight. Not since the storm.
Not since Ray. Not since Jennifer had said she wanted a separation.
Not since he’d failed to get the answers he sought of Nikkie Jean.
Wallace had failed at a lot of things lately.
Hell, he’d been failing at them for fifteen years. “It is all Miranda’s fault.”
Wallace had the girl in his grip. Nurse Izzie, such
a little fireball. She didn’t weigh much. Skinny. She smelled like soap and antiseptic and…blood.
He might well have killed this girl already, too. Just like Miranda and Connie. Only this one hadn’t done a damned thing to him. Except be a little sharp-tongued when he’d made mistakes.
Clean up your messes, Wallace. Just clean them up.
Then deal with little Nikkie Jean.
He shoved the nurse. Hard. Straight into Jacobson’s arms. Boy always had liked dark-eyed brunettes, after all. Might as well give him this one.
Then he raised the gun.
And fired again. Right at Jacobson. Not to hurt him, but to make it clear. Jacobson wasn’t coming in for Nikkie Jean.
He slammed the glass doors shut and turned the deadbolt quickly. Leaving himself alone with Jordan Carrington’s daughter.
91
ALLEN CAUGHT IZZIE, JUST as the bullet singed past his arm and embedded in the wall.
She cried out against him. Weakly.
“How many times were you hit?” he demanded. He needed to see, but there wasn’t time for that.
“Nik’s in there with him. You have to get her out.” She was struggling to breathe, but she forced the words out. “Three. He shot me three times.”
Big, dark eyes filled with terror looked right into his soul in that moment.
“Has she been shot?”
“No. Not yet. I don’t think he wants to hurt her. He mentioned her parents. He knew them.”
Allen had to make a decision.
Izzie had been shot—three times by her own count. Allen couldn’t just stand there and let her bleed to death.
He could hear sirens in the distance.
It could have been an ambulance for the hospitals nearby. He just hoped to hell he was wrong.
There was no way he could put Izzie down to go save Nikkie Jean.
He had a decision to make and he knew it.
Allen carried her down the hall to the back stairs as fast as he dared.
92
CAINE HEARD THE SHOTS. He’d heard enough shots in his life to know exactly what they were. So had the man next to him. Caine didn’t care. Nikkie Jean was over there. In that building somewhere.
He ran. No one was running out of the building. Nikkie Jean and her friends would be running out of the building if they could.
That thought blazed across his mind. She was in there.
Thor grabbed for him and nearly jerked him back. But Caine was bigger. “Stop! Use your head, man!”
“Nikkie Jean is in there.”
“And so is a gunman. We wait for the SWAT units.”
“The TSP building took a direct hit last week. They’re short-staffed.”
He wasn’t waiting. Not with Nikkie Jean in there. “Nikkie Jean is in there. I’m going to her.”
She needed him.
His every thought was on the woman inside that building.
Allen Jacobson met them in the lobby, a familiar dark-haired woman in his arms.
Guard dog Izzie looked dead. That was Caine’s first thought.
And if she was hurt—Nikkie Jean was nearby. Izzie was almost fanatical about knowing where Annie and Nikkie Jean were at at all times. Nikkie Jean had shared bits of the other woman’s story.
Caine was warming up to her. They had the same goal after all.
Protecting Nikkie Jean.
“Jacobson, where’s Nikkie Jean?”
“Henedy has her in the lobby.”
“Is she hurt?”
“No! But he’s used four bullets. I don’t know how many he has left. I got to go!”
The woman was turning blue in his arms. “Go!”
93
NIKKIE JEAN FORCED HERSELF to stay present for this. If she checked out like her mind was telling her to do, she would probably die.
She would…and so would her baby.
Nikkie Jean was going to do everything in her power to make certain that didn’t happen.
She wanted Caine. She wanted to see Caine hold this baby like he did Dalton. She wanted to help save Izzie. She wanted to be there when Annie adopted her three little boys.
She wanted to go to a parent-teacher conference for the first time. To buy clip-on earrings and purple nail polish and to learn about Minecraft and zombies.
Not sit there and listen to a madman expound about things she didn’t have a clue about. “I…let me go, Wallace. I need to go be with Izzie. She’s my best friend. She’s going to be scared.”
“I need to clean up some messes first, Nikkie Jean.”
“What messes?”
He motioned for her to sit down. She did. Against the wall nearest the windows.
She just needed to see that light.
Henedy was blocking her path to the lobby doors. There was no way she’d be able to outrun him—or a bullet.
The window might be her best option. Why not? It had worked for Rafe and Jillian all those months ago.
94
CAINE TOOK ONE LOOK through the glass doors. Nikkie Jean huddled near the window, Wallace Henedy paced in front of her, clutching a revolver. Most likely a six-shooter.
Thor peered inside from the opposite door frame. “Six-shooter. How many did your pal say?”
“Four.”
Two bullets left. Unless Henedy had brought more.
“We have to get her out of there.” He could see the fear, the panic, on her face. She had her arms crossed over her stomach, over the baby.
Caine forced his own panic back.
She was alive right now. That mattered. That meant there was hope.
“There’s got to be a rear entrance. It’s still early; it may not be locked.”
“Which means I can get in. It might take me some time.”
“I’ll buy you that time. And then you get Nikkie Jean out.”
Two more bullets.
If that gun discharged, Caine meant for it not to be in Nikkie Jean’s direction.
“Go. I’ll cause a distraction out here.”
The glass-pane doors wouldn’t provide protection, but if he could get Henedy to shoot at one, Caine could get himself inside.
To her.
He forced himself to wait, to give Thor time to get to the back of the building.
Henedy turned toward Nikkie Jean more fully, the gun in his hand aimed in her direction. Caine wasn’t waiting any longer.
Caine slammed into the glass doors of the charity that Nikkie Jean loved so much.
95
“CAINE!” NIKKIE JEAN yelled for that damned Alvaro the instant she saw him. She rose, no doubt to go to him. Wallace grabbed her by the arm and yanked her back.
He wasn’t stupid. If Alvaro got inside, there would be hell to pay.
Part of the reason he was in this mess was because of Caine Alvaro’s damned forensic accountant investigator, or whatever the bastard called himself.
Wallace fired. Right at the big son-of-a-bitch.
The glass shattered.
“Caine!” She clawed and twisted and fought to get away from him to her lover.
Wallace just yanked her off her feet. Her back slammed into his chest. His hand tightened over her waist, right over the slight thickening where Alvaro’s baby rested.
Damned bastard had ruined all of his plans.
Wallace didn’t know how to clean up this mess now. He jerked his hand from her waist and wrapped it around her shoulders, just to hold her still.
Nikkie Jean screamed, a blood-chilling, curdling wail that had him dropping her right there on the floor. Never had he heard a sound like it.
96
CAINE SAW THE opportunity, and he took it. Nikkie Jean was on the floor, curling up around the baby.
She was shutting down. He knew that.
It didn’t matter. What mattered was that there was one bullet left.
And Wallace Henedy was too close to the woman he loved. Caine dove for the other man. He was younger, stronger, larger, and had more to fight for.
/> Caine wasn’t going to let himself think about losing.
His hand wrapped around Henedy’s gun hand. He used his own shoulder to barrel into Henedy’s chest.
They went down.
The force of Caine’s blow sent the other man sprawling.
The gun discharged.
Fire shot through Caine’s chest, but he ignored it.
Nikkie Jean was screaming.
Yelling his name.
She was back on her feet now. “Get out of here, Nikkie Jean!”
Henedy swung. Missed.
And he just kept coming.
97
CAINE SLAMMED HENEDY to the ground, the gun fell out of the other man’s hand. Nikkie Jean kicked it to the far corner.
Her eyes stayed trained on the men.
Caine stood up, staggered.
Blood was blooming on his chest.
“No!” Henedy dove at him.
Caine stumbled. He shouldn’t have. He was bigger, stronger. And he’d been shot. Caine was hurt. Panic built again.
The two men rolled on the floor.
When the men rolled again, Nikkie Jean didn’t think. She just jumped. Landing on Wallace Henedy’s back.
“You leave him alone!” She sank her teeth into his neck.
He howled and tried to throw her off of him.
Nikkie Jean may have been small and a bit battered, and nauseated as hell ninety-nine percent of the time now, but that didn’t matter.
What mattered was that this man had tried to take the people she loved away from her. And that was just not going to happen anymore.
Nikkie Jean’s hands went for his eyes. She clawed. As fiercely as she could.
He just kept howling.
Like a rabid animal.
Her knees tightened around him.
This time, this time, she was the one attacking from behind.
Lost in the Wind Page 31