A Forever Kind of Hero

by Marie Ferrarella

  A silent cry stuck in her throat as Megan realized that she was looking down the barrel of a custom-made handgun.

  A shot rang out, ricocheting in her ears.

  Adrenaline screaming through her, Megan felt nothing. Before her, she saw Velasquez’s eyes widened in stunned disbelief as he looked down at his chest. Blood poured out, soaking through his white shirt and onto his white jacket.

  He fell forward, dragging Kathy down with him.

  “That one’s for Andy,” Garrett said, his voice hardly above a whisper.

  Kathy was shaking and sobbing hysterically, trying to get away but trapped by the handcuffs. As quickly as she could, Megan found the keys in Velasquez’s pocket and uncuffed the girl from the dead man.

  Once on her feet, Megan took Kathy into her arms. “It’s okay, it’s all over.” Trying to calm her down, Megan stroked the girl’s hair. “Shh. You’re safe now. Wichita—”

  She turned toward Garrett, only to see that there was an odd expression on his face. Still holding Kathy to her with one arm, she reached over to touch Garrett. She never got the chance to ask him what was wrong.

  His eyes closed as he sank to his knees.

  It was only then that Megan realized Velasquez’s bullets had not gone far astray of their original target. Garrett had been shot twice.

  She tried to catch him, but couldn’t. The weight of his body brought Megan down to the ground with him.

  “Omigod, you’ve been hit!” She bit back a panicky sob.

  Garrett struggled to remain conscious. “What was your first clue?” The words dribbled out weakly.

  “Harris!” she screamed, fighting not to let panic turn her mind blank.

  There was commotion all around them. Someone had gone into the plane and was bringing out the socialite and the pilot. The other woman on the plane—the DEA agent—was wounded, but alive. None of that mattered. Nothing mattered but the man whose head she cradled on her blood-splattered lap.

  “Harris, Wichita’s been shot!” She looked down at Garrett’s face, her heart freezing within her breast. There was blood everywhere. She couldn’t even tell where the bullets had entered. “You’ll be all right,” she told Garrett fiercely. “Hang in there, you hear me?” She looked up again, searching for the familiar face amid those she didn’t recognize. “Harris, call an ambulance!” she ordered. “Wichita’s bleeding all over the place.”

  She was vaguely aware of someone sobbing in the background. It had to be Kathy, Megan thought numbly, even as she felt tears sliding down her cheeks.

  Stripping off her jacket, she balled it up and pressed it against one of the holes she finally saw in Garrett’s chest. He winced in protest.

  “Don’t be such a baby,” she chided, her voice hitching. “I have to do this.”

  “Megan...”

  His voice was so soft that she could barely hear him. There was too much noise around them; too many people yelling. And there was a rushing sound in her ears, almost engulfing her.

  Megan swallowed, afraid to think, afraid to feel anything. “Don’t talk,” she snapped at him. “Save your strength. You’re not going to die, you’re not,” she insisted tearfully. “Do you hear me, Wichita? I said, you’re not allowed to die. You’re the good guy. I swear, if you die, I’ll never forgive you.”

  She bent her head over Garrett to see if he was breathing. Something fluttered weakly against her cheek, but she wasn’t sure if it was his breath, or just the air itself.

  His eyes were closed.

  “You’re not allowed to die,” she repeated hoarsely. “Do you hear me, you big, dumb jerk? You’re supposed to be alive. Don’t you die on me.” Her heart aching, she whispered against his ear. “I love you, Garrett. Please open your eyes.”

  Behind her, she heard the wail of sirens getting louder. “The ambulance is here,” she told him.

  Someone reached to take her arm and help her up, but she slapped the hand away. Rocking, she tightened her arms around Garrett, waiting for the ambulance attendants to arrive. Praying that they weren’t too late.

  “You can stop playing possum now. They’re going to call your bluff.”

  Her tears fell on his face, but Garrett didn’t respond. There was no indication that he had heard anything.

  He remained as still as death in her arms.

  As still as her heart had become.

  Chapter 16

  “I’m coming in with you.” Her hand held Garrett’s tightly as the attendants wheeled him into the emergency room. The steely edge in her voice masked the fact that Megan was as close to hysteria as she had ever been in her life. She’d kept up a steady stream of chatter all the way to the hospital, hoping to rouse him.

  He’d never opened his eyes.

  The ER physician waved her back to the electronic doors.

  “We’ll take it from here,” he said tersely.

  There was no way that she was going to retreat. She needed to be there, in the room, while they worked on Garrett. Needed to be there in case these were the last minutes he had. She wasn’t about to let him die alone.

  Her eyes met the doctor’s as a medical team lifted Garrett onto the examining table. “Not without me.”

  The chief attendant was rattling off vital signs to him. The doctor nodded as he pulled on a sterile gown. “Lady, you’ll do him a whole lot more good keeping out of our way.”

  Her back to the wall, Megan rested her hand on the swell of the revolver tucked into the waistband of her jeans. Her eyes never left the doctor’s face. “I’ll keep out of your way in here, not out there.”

  The doctor threw up his freshly gloved hands, surrendering. But he gave her a last warning. “One word, and I call security.”

  Megan nodded, her eyes shifting toward Garrett. She was too busy praying and making deals with a higher power to answer.

  Staying in the recesses of the room, feeling useless, Megan watched the medical team work through eyes that were hazed with tears. She couldn’t think, couldn’t focus. All she could do was hold on. And will Garrett to do the same.

  Outside, Garrett’s friends and the agents who worked with him were all gathering to wait for any news. Kathy and the other girls had been moved to another room at the hotel until morning. All of Velasquez’s men had been taken into custody. Velasquez was the only casualty. But all of it could have been happening on Mars for the impact it made on Megan.

  Nothing mattered but Garrett.

  He’d lost so much blood, she kept thinking. Her own clothes were soaked with it. How much blood could a man lose and still live?

  She was afraid of finding out the answer.

  “Here, I think you could use this....”

  Megan leaned against the wall outside the first-floor operating room for so long that she no longer knew which of them was holding the other up. She turned her head away from the closed doors, and looked down at the paper cup Oscar was pressing into her hands.

  He’d introduced himself to her as Garrett’s partner when she’d come out of the ER, following the surgical team as they hurried Garrett into the operating room. His wide, amiable face had been creased with concern, and she’d appreciated it, felt comforted by it.

  Megan stared at the dark liquid. “What’s this?”

  “Coffee. The real stuff. I got it from the shop across the street.”

  Numb, she nodded and mechanically brought the container to her mouth. The next moment, she couldn’t remember if she’d taken a sip or not. With effort, she tried to collect her thoughts. It was past three o’clock in the morning.

  It felt as if time had just stopped moving altogether.

  “Is Kathy—”

  Oscar nodded, anticipating her question. “She’s all right,” he assured her. “And waiting for you to take her home.”

  She’d called Kathy’s parents just as Garrett was taken into the operating room. Megan remembered barely holding together long enough to assure the couple that their daughter was safe and that she would be on he
r way home as soon as a few legal details were ironed out.

  Operating on automatic pilot, she’d untangled Kathy’s involvement in the ring for Garrett’s superior when Cassidy had arrived at the hospital. Kathy was free to go, as long as she returned later if her testimony was needed.

  She’d deal with that later Megan looked at her watch. An old-fashioned analog model, the minute hand appeared to have glued itself into place “What time do you have?”

  The smile on Oscar’s face was understanding. “Same time you do, Megan. The doctor said it would take a while.”

  She didn’t feel like being patronized. “He didn’t say anything about forever.” Blowing out a breath, she looked at Oscar. “I’m sorry.”

  A slight shake of his head told her that she didn’t have to bother apologizing. He understood. “Garrett’s resilient. I’ve seen him go through worse.”

  She looked at the small man and knew he was lying for her benefit. A half smile struggled to her lips. “Thanks.”

  Caught, Oscar shrugged his wide shoulders.

  A few steps away from them, the doors to the operating room opened.

  Megan straightened like an arrow, braced for the worst... praying for the best. She was beside the doctor in a heartbeat. “How is he?”

  The man tugged his mask down about his neck. He looked exhausted, but pleased. “Luckier than he should be. A quarter of an inch to the right, and you’d be talking to the medical examiner, not me.”

  “But what’s his condition?” Megan pressed.

  “Stable. Not that it won’t take some time—”

  Impatient, Megan cut through the hedging. “He’ll live?”

  The doctor smiled. “He’ll live.”

  She let out the breath that she seemed to have been holding for the last four hours. Draining the container of coffee by way of celebration, she took one last look toward the operating room. Through the glass, she could see Garrett’s gurney being wheeled off. It disappeared through the double doors that led into the recovery room.

  Megan crumpled the container and tossed it away. She looked at the surgeon. “Thank you.” She’d never meant the words more sincerely than she did at this moment.

  With that, she turned on her heel and began to walk away.

  “Where are you going?” Oscar called after her.

  “To get on with the rest of my life,” Megan said as she left.

  There was a girl she had to take home—a family to reunite.

  Old adages stank, Megan thought moodily, staring at the computer screen in her office. Particularly the one that said “Out of sight, out of mind.” The only thing that was apparently going out of mind with Garrett out of sight was her.

  It had been six weeks—six long weeks—since she’d walked out of the hospital in Reno. Six weeks since she’d brought Kathy Teasdale back to her grateful parents. And four weeks since Wichita had been discharged from the hospital.

  She knew exactly when he’d been discharged because up until that time, she’d called the hospital daily—not to talk to him, but to the nurse on call on his floor, in order to get a progress report on his condition. She’d called two, three times a day, until one day she’d been informed that he’d left.

  And disappeared from her life.

  It was what she wanted, she reminded herself now. To have him gone—completely and irrevocably, so that she could finally get over him.

  So why wasn’t it happening?

  Why was she progressively more irritable with each passing day, instead of progressively more complacent? The fact that he hadn’t tried to reach her in the last four weeks shouldn’t be bothering her the way it was, shouldn’t be stinging her heart. He was only getting on with his life.

  The way she should have been with hers.

  They were both adults. They both understood one-night stands—or two-night stands, as it were. They’d been just two ships passing in the night, nothing more.

  She hurled a paperweight against the wall, breaking off its base.

  A minute later, Sam poked his head into her office. He looked at her a little uncertainly, sort of like Daniel checking out the size and shape of the lions in their den. He glanced at the paperweight on the floor.

  “Have we set up a new system of communication nobody told me about? One thud for ‘Come in,’ two thuds for ‘Get lost’?”

  Megan gritted her teeth together. If she was ever less in the mood to talk, she couldn’t remember when. “I dropped something.”

  Sam stooped down and picked up the broken paperweight. “All the way across the room?”

  Her expression warned him to run for cover if he was smart. “I tripped. It flew out of my hand.”

  Sam had always liked living on the edge. Crossing to her, he placed the pieces on her desk. “I hate to point this out, Meg, but you’re sitting.”

  “Then don’t point it out.” Not trusting herself, Megan turned away and glared at her half-empty cup of coffee.

  Sam pretended to duck, his hands over his head. “Is that going to ‘drop’ out of your hands next?”

  Afraid that if she started chewing him out for butting in, she wouldn’t stop, Megan turned her wrath on something neutral. “Why am I the only one who can make a decent cup of coffee around here?”

  “Because you’re the only one with access to tar, Megan.” Moving the pieces over, he sat down on the edge of her desk and looked at her. “Want to talk about it?”

  “The coffee?”

  “No,” he said pointedly.

  Her mouth hardened. There was no way that she was going to talk to anyone about what she felt. Talking about the hurt would only make it last longer.

  “No.”

  Sam’s eyes shifted toward the doorway. “Maybe you’d like to talk to him about it, instead.”

  “‘Him’?”

  “Behind you.” Sam jerked his thumb toward the doorway.

  She turned and saw Garrett standing at the threshold of her office. She was caught off guard as joy and excitement whipped through her like a fierce Kansas twister. Then she was on her feet, hurrying to him. Just as abruptly, she stopped.

  This was the man who hadn’t picked up a phone to call her in the last four weeks.

  Searching for words, determined to hang on to her dignity, she raised her chin—defensive and ready. “You got well.”

  It was all Garrett could do not to sweep her into his arms, bad shoulder or not. But for now, he followed her lead and kept his hands to himself and his emotions under restraint. “Yeah, I did.”

  “I’ll just go and see if I can find some fresh tar for your coffee,” Sam murmured, backing out of the office. Neither seemed to notice him leave.

  “How’s Kathy?” Garrett asked, testing the waters as the door closed behind Sam.

  It took her a minute to recuperate. Her mind had gone completely blank at the sight of him.

  “Getting readjusted to the life of a fourteen-year-old. Putting her brief stint in the drug world behind her. No one’s bringing any charges against her because of her age and the fact that she was held against her will. The authorities are turning a blind eye to the fact that she supposedly walked into that life willingly. She’s not seeing Joe anymore, much to her parents’ relief.”

  Megan waited a beat. The awkwardness didn’t leave. It hung around like an uninvited guest. “So what are you doing here?” she finally asked. “Working on another case?”

  Garrett wanted to touch her, to glide his hands along her arms, her face, and assure himself that this time, she wasn’t a dream. He stuck his hands in his pockets. “No, I came to look up my sister.”

  “Your sister?”

  “Yeah, the one the nurses told me kept calling every day, asking how I was doing.” He watched her eyes, loving the way they darkened. Just the way they did right before they made love. “They all thought it was very unusual that she didn’t want to be put through to the phone in my room. I told them that you were very unusual.” The smile was smug. “I figur
ed it had to be you.”

  She shrugged. “I was just curious how you were doing.”

  It went beyond curiosity, and they both knew it. “Oscar said you threatened the ER doctor with a gun.”

  “I did not.” And then the heat left her voice as she gave him details. “I just rested my hand on the gun butt. I can’t help what he thought. He wanted to physically eject me from the treatment room.”

  Oscar had told him about that, too. Along with the fact that most men only dreamed about a woman like Megan coming into their lives. “People usually wait in the waiting area.”

  Had he come all this way just to lecture her? Or was he here to gloat because he knew she was in love with him? In either case, she was ready to set him straight. “Like you said, I’m not like most people.”

  Garrett’s eyes swept over her. Was it his imagination, or had she gotten more gorgeous in the last month-and-a-half? “No—that you are not.”

  Megan felt edgy, and she wanted to wrap this up. To send him on his way before she did something that she was going to regret. “So, you’re getting along now? Back to normal?”

  Garrett decided to draw the moment out. “Normal’s relative. I’m still doing my exercises.”

  “Exercises?”

  “For my shoulder,” he explained. The sling had only come off this morning, just before he’d taken the flight out to Orange County. “I checked into a rehab hospital for three weeks. Therapist worked with me every day to get my arm mobile again.” And it had paid off. His arm was almost back to the way it’d been before the shooting.

  “Three weeks,” she repeated. “What did you do for the fourth?”

  “Tried to work some things out in my head.” The answer was both honest and vague. “Why didn’t you come to see me?”

  She tried to look indifferent. “Long commute.” The flippant tone died on her lips as she looked up at him. “Besides, I thought you’d prefer it this way. Didn’t you once say that you liked tying up loose ends and moving on?”

  “I did.” Unable to resist any longer, he reached up and touched her hair, sifting a strand through his fingers. He watched as a look of desire entered her eyes. “Way I see it, the loose end hasn’t been tied up yet.”