by Jessica Gray
Her heart thundering in her ears, she slowly opened her eyes and saw the leader helping the first guy to his feet, and between them picking up the second and fleeing the scene. In the distance the sound of a police siren faded.
From her hideout she couldn’t see Fernando and, scared to death, she didn’t wait for him to call but crawled out to find him. He stood in the middle of the street, upright, but heaving like a tree in a storm. His t-shirt was covered in blood.
“You’re hurt. You need to go to the hospital.”
“No hospitals,” he said, staggering. Karen wrapped an arm around his waist to steady him. He was losing lots of blood, and any reasonable person would seek out medical attention right away.
“You need help.”
“It’s nothing,” he responded and tried a grin, but it looked more like a grimace.
“Nothing? You’ve been stabbed with a knife, for God’s sake!” Karen said, exasperated. “Let me at least bring you home.”
“Can’t go home. Too far. And they’ll be waiting there with reinforcements.”
“Please, let me get you to the hospital?”
“No. They’ll call the cops.”
“Then where? You need help,” she pleaded with him.
“There’s a community center around the corner. We’ll go there.” He staggered in that direction.
“Are they open this late?”
“No.” He said nothing else, and Karen didn’t ask. She used all of her energy to help him in staying upright and moving forward.
When they reached the center, it was indeed closed, but Fernando picked the lock within a few seconds. “Open,” he said, the pain apparent in his voice.
Once inside, he collapsed to the floor and Karen knelt down besides him. “Fernando, give me your phone.”
“Why?”
“Why? So I can call an ambulance for you.” The shrill sound of her own voice hurt in her ears. The whole situation was absurd.
“No.” His breathing became heavier by the minute. Karen wasn’t an expert, but she knew quite well he was in a dire condition.
“Why not?” Despite her best efforts to remain calm it came out as a shriek.
“Because they’ll call the police. No police. No ambulance.”
“Fernando, we need to stop the bleeding. Is there a first aid kit around here or something else I can use?” Karen stood to have a look around and then realized he wasn’t answering her. Covered in cold sweat she turned around to face him. “Fernando?”
He was watching her with pain-filled eyes, and for a moment, she considered running away. But she couldn’t leave him here to die; he’d gotten injured protecting her. Now it was her turn to help him. They were in this together, as unlikely as it seemed.
She took a deep breath and searched her brain for the remnants of her first aid class many years ago. I have to stop the bleeding. “Take off your shirt.”
Fernando responded to her request with a weak grin and a murmured, “I knew you want me.”
“You wish, hero.” Karen had to smile and a burden fell from her shoulders. “If you can still flirt, you’re doing better than I thought.”
She knelt down and helped him work his shirt off, inspecting the wound and realizing that while it was bleeding a lot, it wasn’t actually all that deep. The knife had stabbed him at a very flat angle, leaving a flesh wound at the side of his chest.
Despite the seriousness of the situation, Karen couldn’t help but admire his gorgeous body. He was pure muscle from neck to waist. His abs formed visible six-packs and his pecs looked like they were chiseled in stone. Add to that his natural tanned skin and the sexy black chest hair and he was the full package. Guys with a hot body like that usually didn’t appear in real life, save on her Facebook newsfeed wearing nothing but a fire hat, or catcher’s mitt.
Her stomach dipped and flipped as she became aware of the lust-filled stare he sent her way. I can’t believe I’m drooling over a guy who’s bleeding to death – and who’s a criminal.
Karen bit her upper lip, trying to concentrate at the task at hand. Put pressure on the wound. Yep, that’s what the first aid instructor had said. But with what? She looked around and the only suitable object was his shirt, dirty as it was. She rolled up his shirt and pressed it onto the wound, but her efforts were futile.
Fernando was getting worse with each passing minute and beat of his heart. The t-shirt was soon soaked with blood and he started shivering. His face was ghostly white even beneath his olive skin, and she thought he might be going into shock.
“Fernando, do you know of a doctor to call?”
“Nah … not until morning.”
“You don’t have until morning. You’re still bleeding. A lot.” Karen imagined the worst. And she sure as hell didn’t want to be found beside a dead body the next morning inside the community center they’d broken into. That would mean a hell of a lot explaining to the police.
Why didn’t I stay in the hospital? The hospital! Marcela. Of course, this was the solution. But how could she convince Marcela to help? And how could she contact her? No, the idea was ridiculous. The only way to contact Marcela was to call Robert. And then he’d know Karen had followed him to Los Angeles to spy on him. Embarrassment flushed her entire body.
She was still pondering her options when Fernando made a sound that sent ice cruising through her veins. He was a mere shadow of his former self and his glorious body seemed to shrivel before her eyes. “Cariña.”
“Fernando, you’re going to die if help doesn’t come soon.”
He blinked in agreement.
“I know a nurse. She works at the La Selva hospital. She’ll help us.” I hope this won’t turn out to be a lie.
“Phone in pocket.”
Karen gingerly removed the phone from Fernando’s front pants pocket, this time concentrating on the task and not on his hot body, and dialed Robert’s cell phone number. As she waited for the call to connect, she thought about the irony. Life sure had strange ways. The same woman who might eventually destroy any chance Karen and Robert had at happiness was at the moment her only source of help.
***
The story of Karen and Robert continues in book 3.
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Falling for Him Book 1
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Please enjoy a preview of the story of Trevor and Nicole
POWER OF LOVE
The Armstrongs, Book 1
Jessica Gray
Preview Power of Love
Sometimes Trevor Armstrong hated his job. It was a sentiment that made him question why he’d gone into law to begin with. The courtroom was slowly emptying out, the conversations fading away, leaving an unsettling quiet behind. He was beginning to hate this particular courtroom, as the only cases he ever mitigated inside it were marriage dissolutions!
Tamping down his irritation, he gathered up his paperwork and tapped it on the wooden table a few times to align the edges of the papers together. He stuck them inside the manila folder with the name of his client emblazoned in red across the top tab, and put the folder inside his opened briefcase.
Closing the brown leather case, he lifted his head up to see his latest client, the ex-Mrs. Cecilia Patton, watching him with a calculating gleam in her eyes. He smiled at her, trying to maintain his professional façade for a few moments longer. “Mrs. Patton, congratulations.” His voice lacked any enthusiasm, despite the fact that he’d just won a major commission for his firm.
The blonde bombshell gus
hed her thanks a little more profusely, stepping close enough to lay an elegant hand with fire-engine red nails against the stark white of his dress shirt and bright yellow of his tie. “No, thank you! I can’t tell you how much I appreciate how well you handled Dennis. Without you, I’d probably be out on the street right now!”
And looking for another sucker to marry and divorce! Trevor kept that observation to himself, backing up a step and making it look as if he’d been allowing her to precede him from the courtroom. “All in a day’s work. Can I walk you out?”
Mrs. Patton batted her eyes at him and gave him a smile that was more enticement than it was appropriate. She was the worst type of client; the longer he stayed in her presence, the dirtier he felt.
Making short work of the walk towards the exit of the justice center, he excused himself at the men’s restroom, in dire need of ending his association with Mrs. Patton and trying to salvage what was left of this day. He saw the opposing counsel as he exited the restroom, and schooled his features into a normal mien, not giving any indication whether or not he was happy he’d just won his client nearly $35 million of her ex-husband’s money. “Trevor, you realize the only reason you won was because of a technicality?” the man he’d just faced across the courtroom asked.
Trevor inclined his head. He liked the opposing lawyer, but he wasn’t in the mood to talk to him today. And this was business. “I followed the letter of the law. Persons under the age of twenty-one in this state cannot enter into legally binding agreements of any kind without a parent’s or guardian’s signature. Mr. Patton should have been more diligent and allowed his legal team to more thoroughly research the woman he chose to marry.”
At the time Cecilia Patton had signed the prenuptial agreement, she’d been three days away from her twenty-first birthday. This detail made her signature invalid on the prenuptial agreement, but perfectly legal on their marriage license. The only exception to the age restriction was for marriage, which allowed persons upon reaching the age of eighteen to marry whomever they wanted without a parent’s or guardian’s cooperation.
The law was confusing, and not something that most people would even think to research, but it was on the books, and therefore, enforceable. Mrs. Patton had received half of her ex-husband’s money on a technicality, even though the prenuptial had said she’d get next to nothing if the marriage lasted less than five years or failed to produce a male heir.
The marriage had lasted sixteen months, and Cecilia Patton took fertility shots, not wanting to chance losing her youthful figure by becoming pregnant!
He had discovered the age discrepancy, shutting down the court case and winning for his client. The decision left no room for a counter-defense. He’d won, so why wasn’t he happy? It was a shallow victory at best. Another marriage flushed down the toilet.
He headed towards the rear entrance and his vehicle. He knew that the front entrance would contain numerous reporters waiting to question and congratulate him on his latest win, and he simply didn’t have the heart for it today.
They’d come to his office to pester him there, but his secretary would take care of it. She was very good at shielding him from unwanted intruders. She’d give a press release and soon the reporters would be bored waiting for him – off to the next sensation. If there was one thing he hated even more than awful clients, it was those reporters.
He was disappointed with the idea of love, and after days like today, he wondered if it was anything more than a fantasy. In his work as a divorce lawyer, he saw failed marriages every day. His clients weren’t the happy couples one saw on television, or in advertisements, they were real people, hurting and hating the person they had once professed undying love for.
Most of the time he did his best to find the good in them. He tried to see things from their perspective, and that strategy worked about half the time. The other half fell into the same category as today’s client. Cecilia Patton was not a nice person. She wasn’t even the injured party. She was an awful fortune-seeker who had used her ex-husband’s desire, to spend the rest of his life happily spending his fortune on his beautiful young wife, against him in the most heinous way.
As he pushed through the glass door at the rear entrance of the courthouse, he shook himself, taking a breath of fresh air to rid himself of the last few hours. Cecilia Patton had gotten her divorce, and her money. She’d also attempted to lure him into becoming the next notch on her bedpost, but Trevor had absolutely no interest in her or her type of woman.
Trevor had a hard and fast rule about sleeping with clients. He didn’t do it! Ever! It would only bring trouble.
He knew his good looks were viewed as a challenge by some members of the female population, especially some of his clients like Cecilia Patton, but he detested being viewed like a piece of meat on the market of available men.
Sure, he worked out – a lot. But not to impress women; no, it was because he liked being in shape. And as a high-profile lawyer he always had to look impeccable. He kept his appearance neat, allowing his dark hair to grow just long enough to touch the top of his collar, but never any longer. His dark blue eyes were framed by thick dark lashes that more than one woman had lamented didn’t belong on a man. And at his core, he was a gentleman. A fact that many women tried to use against him.
He wasn’t looking for love, or anything even close to resembling the emotion. He worked too much. He used the little free time he had to visit the gym or play squash with his buddies, and any remaining hours in his week were spent with his family.
As he entered his vehicle, his thoughts drifted to his younger brother Dean. Dean had just recently found the love of his life, and Trevor found himself skeptical at first. After meeting Melissa, though, he’d changed his opinion. Dean and Melissa looked at each other with such affection; it was plain to see they were made for each other. They complimented each other perfectly, in every way!
Trevor was happy for his brother, he really was. But he wasn’t expecting to ever find that kind of relationship for himself. He saw so many broken relationships in his everyday life; a love like Dean’s and Melissa’s only happened once in a blue moon.
No! He was perfectly happy with the way his life was going. He had a small collection of women who would go out with him, knowing that nothing serious or exclusive was part of the deal. And given his current workload, the last thing on his mind was finding a woman to spend the rest of his life with. In fact, she didn’t exist, and he was fine with that.
He activated the hands-free car kit with the words “Call Ryan.” He just loved that little technical toy. It allowed him to use the driving time in his car for work. Then he waited for his brother Ryan to pick up. Ryan was an artist who worked with precious metals – gold, to be specific. He made and sold his own jewelry, and together they were working on a special surprise for Dean’s engagement.
“Hey, how’s it going?” he asked Ryan, not having to identify himself as he knew Ryan had a specific ring tone for each of his siblings. All seven of them!
“Trevor, are you finished with court for the day?”
“Yeah. I won.”
“Do I congratulate you? Shouldn’t you sound a tad bit happier?”
“No, it’s fine. Just a lousy client who worked the legal system to take her husband for a cool $35 million for sixteen months of so-so sex and no loyalty.”
“Whoa there, bro! You’re sounding jaded. I never understood why you went in for law. And divorce law of all things!”
They’d had this discussion many times. Ryan loved all things beautiful. Gold, precious metals, gemstones, diamonds. That was why he had chosen his career as goldsmith and jeweler, to make the world a more beautiful place. At least, that was his explanation. Trevor believed it was because it gave him the opportunity to hook up with many beautiful women.
Anyhow, Trevor wasn’t up to discussing his career choice today and changed the topic. “I was calling to see when you wanted to get together and finish the design for Dean�
�s engagement present. You know Mom will not sit on this very long before she takes over and plans the entire thing.”
Ryan laughed. “Well, planning was kind of her thing while we were growing up. I think she misses it, and Melissa and Dean are giving her the perfect opportunity to come out of retirement. She doesn’t get many opportunities to have us all gathered under the same roof these days, and knowing Mom, she won’t let this chance pass her by.
“As far as schedules go, we could meet Thursday. I have to finish up a diamond necklace with matching earrings, but after that I’ve got plenty of time to get the piece for Dean designed and constructed.”
“Great! How about Thursday morning before work? I’ve got a easy schedule for the rest of the week.”
“That sounds good. How about I meet you at the gym and we play a few games of squash before we put our creative juices to work? I haven’t had a chance to best you in weeks.”
“As if you can! Bring it on, bro. I’ll meet you at the gym and give you an opportunity to back up those words with your sweat and tears. When I beat your ass, you’re buying.”
“Deal. See you Thursday.”
Trevor disconnected the call, only to have it ring back immediately, “Yeah? Calling to call off the challenge?” he asked, assuming the caller was Ryan.
“Uh, Trevor? It’s Blaine.”
He laughed. “Sorry about that. I thought you were Ryan calling back. What’s up?”
“I heard you won the Patton case and was just getting ready to head out. Want to meet at Charlie’s for a drink before you do?”
“Sure. I was just sitting in my vehicle before heading out. I’ll meet you on the north side of the building. There’s no way I’m going back into the building. I don’t have it in me to deal with reporters today.”