For Her Protection

by Lauren Giordano

  As the sound of helicopters finally faded, Jillian forced herself to listen. There were more ear-splitting noises. Sirens. Lots of them. She winced when car doors slammed, each one louder than the next. And then there were footsteps and voices…strident, arguing voices. All the sounds blurred together and she smiled at the softer, muted sound. Now everyone sounded as though they were inside a tunnel. And the loudest noise of all was someone calling—no, he was bloody shouting her name at the top of his lungs. And cursing a blue streak.

  Luke.

  “What do you mean you don’t know where she is?”

  “She’s somewhere around here, dammit.”

  Danny’s voice was gravelly with pain. Jillian lifted her head and scowled in the direction of the sound. Why the hell didn’t Luke leave the poor man alone? Didn’t he know Murphy’d been shot? She watched owlishly as pairs of legs milled around on the other side of the car and chuckled at the thought of grabbing their feet. Wouldn’t that scare the life out of them?

  “Time to get up,” she muttered and then scooted her body into a crawling position. She licked her lips and tasted dirt against her teeth. She was so bloody thirsty. The absolute first thing she was going to do was get a large glass of water—the very moment she stood up.

  She lurched to her feet and was surprised when she staggered against the car door and a frisson of fear pumped through her cloudy brain. Was she paralyzed? Why was she having so much trouble walking? She’d only taken a step when she heard all the shouting start again and felt her legs buckle under her weight. She slid along the car and flopped onto the hood for a rest.

  “Jill! God, no. Jill.”

  She frowned at the hoarse sound of his voice. Luke was upset. The forest was still so damn dusty. He must be choking on it, too.

  “Baby, can you move?” His hands shook when he gently lifted her from the hood of the car. There was blood everywhere. Jillian’s face was ghostly white and her eyes didn’t seem to recognize him when they fluttered open. Fear like he’d never known before knifed through his chest, nearly immobilizing him.

  “Medic! I need a medic over here,” he shouted in a voice he knew was dangerously close to hysteria. His grip tightened reflexively and he forced himself to loosen it. His fingers found hers and he took immeasurable comfort that they were still warm. She was so damn fragile. So helpless. He blinked back the tears that burned in his eyes. Dear God, he couldn’t lose her. He heard the medic drop down near him, watched while he carefully cut Jilly’s jacket away from her and grimaced at the amount of blood that seeped from her shoulder.

  He was helpless to stop the muted groan of anguish. “Help her. You’ve got to hurry. Can you stop the bleeding?”

  “Sir, you need medical attention. Sit down over there until we can get to you.”

  “Is she—” He sank to the ground, his heart in his throat. His hand shook violently when he raised her fingers to his lips. God, he couldn’t even think it, never mind say the words. “Tell me she’s gonna be all right.”

  “Took one in the shoulder. Close range.” The paramedic’s skillful hands got busy, clinically and methodically preparing Jillian for transport to the hospital.

  Her eyes fluttered open and his limbs went liquid with fear when she bit back a sharp cry of pain. “Christ…go easy with her.” He swallowed hard and dropped his head to his hand. “I’m sorry. I—”

  “Luke? Is that you?” Her voice was weak and thready and it terrified him to realize how vulnerable she was.

  “Yeah, honey. I’m here.”

  Her fingers tightened in his hand and she managed a wan smile. “Your Glock has quite a kick. My shoulder hurts a bit. I think I grazed it when I fell down.” Her words slurred together and her eyes clouded while she tried to remember what she was saying. “Be a love and get out the first-aid kit for me, won’t you?”

  He exchanged glances with the paramedic who shook his head in disbelief and Luke felt a volcanic fury begin to build inside of him.

  “It’s not a freakin’ graze when you take a bullet in your shoulder,” he argued. “Why the hell didn’t you stay inside?”

  Josephson had blasted her from close range…and missed. Luke knew he’d aimed to kill. He should be thanking God that he had only caught her in the shoulder, but the murderous rage that welled up inside of him left no room to be thankful. He wanted to tear Josephson apart with his bare hands. But he was already dead. Unbelievably, both Jilly and Murphy had gotten off a round. It would take ballistics to figure out who’d delivered the lethal blow.

  “Danny needed me.”

  “I need you.” Luke sank back on his haunches and relived the drive back. He never should have left her. Never. Never. His mistake had nearly killed her. He’d seen Joe with the gun as he’d bounced up the trail on two flat tires—and the realization had hit him that he’d be too late. Again.

  He was always too late.

  He swallowed convulsively and tightened his grip on Jilly’s fingers. God, how he needed her in his life. She sighed when the pain finally became too much to bear and his heart dropped to his feet when her fingers went limp in his hand. She’d fainted.

  “I love you.” He stared down at her face, at the freckles that now stood in stark contrast to the translucent paleness of her skin and wondered how he would ever be able to let her go.

  Luke rubbed his bleary, overtired eyes and set the pizza on the table.

  “Okay, guys. Dinner is served.” Jimmy and Samuel rushed over to get a slice. He dragged himself over to check on Sarah and was relieved to find her still asleep in the super-deluxe travel crib. Maybe he’d have time for a quick shower before they headed back to the hospital.

  “All set, Mr. Gianetti?”

  “Yeah. Thanks for staying with them today.” For the life of him he couldn’t remember her name. The Knoxville office had sent her over to watch the kids but he hadn’t paid attention when she’d introduced herself. All he could think about was getting back to the hospital where he’d nervously paced while Jillian had the bullet removed from her shoulder and his best friend had undergone surgery to repair the damage to his stomach before they went to work on his leg.

  “No problem. We got a great deal of information from the older one.” She nodded toward James and lowered her voice. “Apparently he ID’ed Duncan as his mother’s killer?”

  Luke nodded, his eyes never leaving James’s face, a surge of protectiveness flooding through him. The poor kid had been through enough. He didn’t need a bunch of strangers talking about his mother like she was just another Jane Doe.

  “Yeah. I was with him.”

  “We’re pretty much done with him for now. Unless Duncan lives. Then we’ll need to talk to him in greater detail. Will you need someone to watch the kids tomorrow?”

  Excellent question. He wished he had an answer. He doubted Jilly would be out of the hospital. And her mother wouldn’t arrive for several days. Apparently the Duchess of Sussex had quite the busy schedule.

  “Yeah, probably. I’d appreciate it if you could send someone over.” He thanked her again and walked her to the door. Leaning back against it, he rested his eyes for a moment before the chaos of the evening began. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d slept. He’d had no real excuse the previous night. The room was large, the bed comfortable, the children exhausted from the terror they’d experienced during the day. And he’d spent the night pacing the floor, his brain unwilling to release him from the nightmare of seeing Jilly, bleeding and half dead as she fell onto the hood of Murphy’s car.

  She and Murphy were in the hospital across the street. Duncan and Petrie had been taken to a more secure facility where, under heavy guard, they still clung to life. Sloan hadn’t lived through the helicopter crash. Josephson and the still unnamed shooter had been killed by Murphy and Jill. Jillian Moseby, the Duchess of Sussex, had blown away possibly two of the biggest drug dealers on the east coast. His Jillian.

  “Luke? You gonna eat wif us?”

  He fo
rced his eyes open and found them both staring at him, mouths full of pizza. He knew they were anxious to see Jill. Especially Jimmy. She would be pleased, he thought, to know that James had worried himself sick over her. She’d finally won him over. Then he shook his head. Knowing Jilly, the fact that he’d been scared would probably make her feel horribly guilty. She’d always been confident that James would come around eventually. She wouldn’t want him to love her out of fear.

  “Yeah. Let’s eat and then we can go across the street to see Jilly.” He pulled out a chair and grabbed a slice of pizza, unable to get the picture of her out of his head. If she could see what he’d been feeding them she’d be having fits. He took a healthy bite and grinned.

  “Remember, guys, when we see Jilly, don’t say anything about the junk food.”

  “Can we go see Murphy, too?”

  He glanced at Samuel who was already nodding his head in agreement and remembered how pale his friend had appeared. “We’ll have to see how he’s feeling first. He might not be well enough for visitors yet.”

  Lucy Murphy had arrived during the night on a company Lear. She’d spoken only briefly with him before rushing off to spend the rest of the day by her husband’s side. He’d checked on them several hours later, peeking through the window of the intensive care unit and had gotten a lump in his throat when he saw her dark head resting on the blanket, her hand tucked into Murphy’s. Fifteen years. And they still adored each other.

  “I wanna tell him about the money. The lady tol’ us that they found a bunch a’ money in our suitcase.”

  When they began to argue, Luke winced. “You can both tell him about it.”

  It had been right where they’d thought it would be, a tightly wrapped package tucked inside Sarah’s footed pajamas. The suitcase had been packed not in haste, but methodically, with clothes for the kids that crossed several seasons. It was pretty obvious that Annie Moseby had been plotting her escape from Sloan for some time. It was also beginning to look as though she’d been the one to kill Sloan’s lieutenant, Gomez. That action had inadvertently helped Luke’s sting operation. If he’d only known then what he knew now… Perhaps Annie would be alive today.

  But then he never would have met Jillian.

  He’d held her hand in the recovery room when she’d first awakened and then fallen promptly back to sleep. She’d slept fitfully throughout the day, waking briefly to mutter incoherent words and phrases. And since he was the only person she knew on this side of the Atlantic, Luke had used that as his excuse to stay with her. She’d smile at him each time she awoke, even spoke his name, but he knew she would remember very little of it.

  He’d used the time to memorize everything about her. Every feature. Every expression. The soft, scented skin. The stormy gray eyes. Her full, ripe mouth that was nearly always twitching into a smile. She was a beautiful woman. But when the beauty blended together with a strong sense of purpose, with her resounding love for her sister’s children and her passion for living, she was damned close to irresistible.

  Very soon he realized, he would have to say goodbye. To her and the kids. He glanced across the table at the boys and smiled. After spending so many days with them, he wasn’t sure who would be harder to leave.

  The ache in his chest for Jillian had been there almost from the start. The twinge he felt for the kids was something more recent. He would miss them. Their smiles, their silly expressions, the fascinating conversations he’d overheard between Sam and Jimmy, the love he saw between them and for their baby sister. He’d gotten used to having them around all the time. And he felt a hollow regret over all the everyday things he would never experience with them.

  Their lives would go on. With Jilly in the picture, he knew they would have full, rich lives, ripe with laughter and fun and love. Each day would be a new adventure. And he would miss out on all of them. She’d asked him to be a part of it. By some miracle, she thought she loved him enough to allow him entry—into their family and into her heart.

  And he’d declined.

  Who cared if it might have only been for a little while? It didn’t matter if she were the queen. He should have said yes. It would have been worth the risk. It would have been incredible. And he wouldn’t have ever wanted to leave. He thought of Murphy, of Lucy sitting with him, holding his hand. He wanted that, too. He wanted the comfort of knowing someone cared for him more than he cared about himself. He wanted the comfort of loving her more than his own life.

  Jilly’s words came back to haunt him. No matter where he was, he would always know someone loved him. The irony was that if he had Jillian, he wouldn’t ever want to go away again. He would want to see them every single day. He wanted to cuddle Sarah in the middle of the night. He wanted to watch Jimmy play baseball and push Sam on the swings at the park. And Jill. He wanted to go to sleep with her every night, certain in the knowledge that he would wake up every morning and feel her in his arms.

  A shiver jagged down his spine catching him unaware and he dropped the slice of pizza he’d been eating, suddenly sick to his stomach. He’d turned down the offer of a lifetime. The question now was whether or not he would be too late to change her mind.

  “Mama!” Sam’s exuberant cry seemed to rattle the quiet stillness of the stark hospital room.

  “Take it easy, champ. Let me lift you up to see her.” Luke swung the little boy’s legs up from the floor before he leaped onto the bed and jarred Jillian’s shoulder. With one arm, he set him gently on the end of the bed and smiled at Jilly while Sam eagerly scrambled into her good arm. She smiled a greeting at Sarah who was kicking madly in his other arm.

  “How’re you feeling?” Now that he knew what he had to say to her, Luke felt ridiculously self-conscious yet confident that he would be able to fix it. She loved him. She’d already admitted that she loved him, he reminded himself. It shouldn’t take much to convince her that he felt the same.

  “Rather well, thank you.”

  He wasn’t put off by her cautious response. After all, he’d been the one to put the damper there. He’d damn well be the one to remove it. He’d plotted for the last hour how he would approach her and had decided to wait until he could get her alone. And then he’d tell her. That he loved her. That he always had. That he wanted to spend the rest of his life with her. Duchess or not, he wanted her—badly. Desperately.

  His eyes never left her face. Luke wanted her to know his feelings now. He wanted her to see the love in his eyes, wanted to see the flare of acknowledgment in hers. But she was already looking beyond him, a smile of encouragement on her beautiful lips.

  “James, love. Why are you hiding?” She patted the spot on the bed near her legs.

  “Jimmy, buddy? Did you want to say hello?” Luke gave him a little nudge forward.

  His slender shoulders hunched, he sat tentatively and allowed himself to be drawn up against her chest. “You’re not gonna die, are ya?”

  “No, love. I’m going to be just fine.” Her eyes misted with tears and she blinked them away. “As soon as I get out of here, we can finally go home.”

  “Where’s home?”

  She pulled him tighter against her and laughed when James yelped. “You’re squishin’ me.”

  “Home is wherever we’re all together.” She dropped a kiss on his forehead before glancing over his head to meet Luke’s gaze. “Home will be in New Hampshire, if we’re finally free to leave, that is.”

  “Not quite yet. Duncan is still—”

  “I see,” she interrupted. She dropped her gaze to Jimmy. “Well, just as soon as we’re able to leave, we’ll finish our drive north. Better yet, I think it’ll be much easier if we fly.”

  “Cool! You mean it? I’ve never flown in an airplane before.”

  “It’ll be our next adventure.” She laughed and snuggled them close to her chest. “I missed you all so much.”

  His blood iced over at the finality in her expression and his gut tightened with warning. She was shutting him out. She�
�d laid it on the line and now it was over. She wasn’t about to give him a second chance. Was it too late? Not now. Not without a chance to fix it.

  “Jilly, we need to talk.”

  “Let’s not, shall we? I think we’ve said everything that needed to be said. No sense rehashing it.”

  He saw the flash of pain in her eyes and knew she held her emotions in tight control. He just wasn’t sure if the hurt was physical from the gunshot wound or from the emotional pain he’d inflicted. But it was pretty clear that she didn’t want to be hurt any more. In one short week he’d taken a vibrant, loving, free spirit and twisted her into a wounded, guarded shell of her former self. He’d succeeded in turning Jilly into a carbon copy of him.

  “Look, I’ve been thinking about us.” His heart began pounding and he was certain that she could hear the thumping across the bed. “I was really wrong. I think we should try—”

  He scowled when her gaze drifted past him to rest on the person entering her room. Couldn’t she let him finish? This was the most important speech of his life. Didn’t she care to hear what he had to say? His frown intensified when he saw the flash of recognition light her features. His grip tightened on Sarah as he turned and his free hand went reflexively for his holster.

  “Ian! What are you doing here?”

  “Hello, darling. What in God’s name are you doing in this backwoods hellhole?”

  Luke’s mouth dropped open when an expensively dressed, perfectly groomed, too pale, too tall jerk strode into the room and disrupted his train of thought.

  “For the love of God, Jillian, I’m staying in a bloody motel. You’ve been gone for what? Two weeks? And you’ve been reduced to this? These accommodations are appalling.” He turned to eye the hospital room with dismay. “Lord only knows what caliber the surgeons are in this backwater. Dear Lord, if the duchess could see you… Why, we’ve simply got to get you back home. Immediately. I’ve assured your mother that I will stand by and offer my services as your escort.”