by Lisa Childs
And Blaine felt the fiery sting as a bullet hit him. He ignored the pain as another robber exited the cabin, aiming straight for him. Even as his arm began to go numb, he kept squeezing the trigger. The zombie fell, but so did Blaine. He struck the ground hard.
His ears ringing from the gunshots, he could barely hear the others calling out for him. “Blaine! Blaine!”
“Are you hit?” Reyes asked.
“Where are you hit?” Ash asked.
He didn’t even know—because what hurt the most was his heart—at the thought that he might never see Maggie again. “Tell her...”
But he didn’t have the strength to finish his request. Like Mark Doremire, he was afraid that he was about to bleed out in the woods.
All he managed to utter was her name. “Maggie...”
Chapter Twenty-Three
Maggie had suspected the worst even before Ash Stryker and another man walked into her hospital room. Their faces were pale with stress, and their clothes were smeared with blood that wasn’t theirs. They looked unharmed but yet devastated.
“No...”
He couldn’t be dead. Blaine couldn’t have died without learning how much she loved him. How much she needed him...
He had always been there when she had needed him. Why hadn’t she been there when he had needed her?
She was already out of bed, standing over Drew’s clear bassinet. She stepped away from it, so that she wouldn’t startle the sleeping baby. But her legs trembled, nearly giving way beneath her. Truman grabbed her, steadying her with a hand on her arm.
Ash shook his head. “He’s not dead, Maggie,” he said. “He’s not dead.”
“But he’s hurt.” They wouldn’t look the way they did if he wasn’t. “How badly?”
Ash shook his head again. “I don’t know.”
“Where was he shot?” she asked. “How many times?”
“What the hell happened?” Truman asked the question before she could add it to her others.
“We went back to that cabin,” the other agent replied. “The woman told us the others were there getting the money she and her husband stashed somewhere on the property.”
Maggie gasped. “Tammy wouldn’t have helped Blaine. She wanted him dead.”
“It was an ambush,” the agent confirmed.
“But Blaine was expecting it,” Ash said. “We got them all. It’s over, Maggie.”
But so might Blaine’s life be over. “Where was he shot?” she asked again. “How many times?”
“Just once,” the other agent replied. But from Mark’s and Sarge’s deaths, she knew once was enough to kill. “The bullet grazed the side of his neck.”
“It nicked an artery,” Ash said. “He lost a lot of blood.”
“But he’s alive,” she said, clinging to hope.
Ash nodded but repeated, “He lost a lot of blood, though.”
“The doctors aren’t sure he’s going to make it,” the other man added. “After they stabilized him, they flew him here.”
“Why?” There were hospitals closer to the cabin. Good ones.
“The last thing he said was your name,” Ash told her.
So they’d thought he wanted to be with her? He had probably only been worried that Tammy had set a trap for her as well as him. She’d wanted them both dead.
But Maggie didn’t care why they had brought Blaine here. She had to see him. She turned to Truman. “Can you keep an eye on Drew while I go see Blaine?”
“Of course,” the big man replied, but he looked nervously at the tiny baby as if afraid that he might awaken.
“This way,” Ash said, as he guided her down the hall to an elevator. They took it to the ground floor and the intensive care unit.
“Only one person at a time,” the nurse at the desk warned them.
Ash waved her forward, so she followed the nurse to Blaine’s bedside. Her golden-haired superhero looked so vulnerable and pale lying there. An IV dripped fluids—maybe plasma—into him, probably replacing the blood he’d lost. A bandage covered the wound on his neck. The injury had been treated.
Now he just had to fight.
“Please,” she implored him as she grasped his hand. “Please don’t leave me.” Tears overflowed her eyes, trailing down her face to drop onto his arm. “I can’t lose you. You have to fight. You have to live.”
Panic had her heart beating frantically, desperately. What could she do to help him fight? How could she lend him some of her strength, as he had always given her his? She wouldn’t have survived without him. Even with all the robbers dead or in jail, she wasn’t sure that she could survive now without him.
“Please,” she implored him again, “please don’t leave me.”
His hand moved inside hers, his fingers entwining with hers. He squeezed. She glanced up at his face and found his green-eyed gaze focused on her. He was conscious!
Embarrassed that he’d caught her crying all over him, she felt heat flood her face. “I’m sorry,” she said.
“Sorry?” he asked, his voice a husky rasp.
“I—I’m crying all over you,” she pointed out. “And I’m making assumptions.”
“Assumptions?”
“I shouldn’t have assumed that you’re with me,” she said. “I know that you’ve just been protecting me—that you’ve just been doing your job—”
He tugged his hand from hers and pressed his fingers over her lips. “Shh...”
The man was exhausted, and here she was, rambling away. She had always talked too much.
“I’m sorry,” she murmured again—against his fingers.
He shook his head—weakly. “You’re wrong...”
Before he could tell her what she was wrong about, the nurse stepped back into the area. “He’s awake? Mr. Campbell, you’re conscious!” She leaned over and flashed a light in his eyes.
Blaine squinted and cursed. “Yes, I’m conscious.”
“I have to get the doctor!” the nurse exclaimed as she hurried off.
“I should go,” Maggie said. “I should tell Ash that you’re awake.” His friends had been worried about him, too.
“I think he probably heard,” Blaine pointed out, as the nurse’s voice rang out.
“Then he’ll want to see you,” Maggie said. She tugged on her hand, trying to free it from his so that she could escape before she suffered even more embarrassment. But before she could leave, a doctor hurried over with the excited nurse.
But even while the doctor talked to him—telling Blaine how lucky he was—he wouldn’t release her. While she loved the warmth and comfort of his hand holding hers, she dreaded the moment when they would be alone again. Because even though he hadn’t died, she suspected he would still be leaving her.
* * *
BLAINE WAS GRATEFUL to the doctor for saving his life, but he couldn’t wait to get rid of him and the nurse. He wanted to be alone with Maggie again.
But the doctor wouldn’t stop talking. “You’re going to need to take it easy for a while and let your body recover from the blood loss. We’re going to keep you in ICU overnight. You really need your rest.”
“I should leave,” Maggie said again as she tried to tug her hand free of his.
He wouldn’t let her go, though. He was strong enough to hang on to her. She gave him strength. Hearing her sweet voice had drawn him from the fog of unconsciousness. She’d made him want to fight. Had made him want to live...
For her.
With her.
“No,” he said. “I need to talk to you.” And he gave a pointed look to the doctor and nurse, who finally took his not-so-subtle hint and left them alone.
“It’s okay,” she said. “I understand. You don’t have to explain to me that you were just doing your job—protecting me and Drew. I know that you don’t feel the same way about me that I do about you.”
He reached out again and covered her silky soft lips with his fingers. “Sweetheart, you do talk too much.” She’d said it herself,
but until now he hadn’t agreed with her.
“Sweetheart?” She mouthed the word against his fingers.
“But that’s the only thing you’re right about,” he said. “You’re wrong about everything else.”
She stopped trying to talk now, and she waited for him to speak. That had never been easy for him—to share his feelings. He’d been hiding them for too long.
And obviously he’d hidden them too well from Maggie because she had no idea how he felt about her.
“You were never just a job to me,” he said. “If you were, I wouldn’t have had to protect you myself. I would have trusted you to Truman or someone like him way before I had to—”
“But you did,” she murmured against his fingers.
“I had to,” he said, “or I was never going to figure out who was trying to hurt you and the baby. But it killed me to not be with you every day.” And when he’d had to leave them again—after Drew had been born—it had literally nearly killed him. “I don’t want to be away from you and Drew again.”
Tears began to shimmer in those enormous brown eyes of hers. “Blaine...?”
He knew what he wanted to say, but he didn’t know how to say it. “I don’t have a ring...”
He couldn’t forget the size and shine of the diamond Andy had given her. But Andy was gone. She had accepted that; Blaine needed to accept it, too.
“And I can’t get down on one knee right now...” Hanging on to her hand had sapped all his strength. If he tried getting out of bed, he would undoubtedly pass out at her feet.
“I don’t need a ring,” she said. “I don’t need any gestures. I just need to know how you feel about me.”
“I’m not good at expressing my feelings,” he said apologetically.
“Just tell me...”
“I love you,” he said. “I love your sweetness and your openness. I love how you worry and care about everyone and everything.”
“You love me?”
He nodded. “I know I’m not your first choice and that you’d promised to marry another man. But Andy’s gone. And I’m here. And I will love you as much as he would have—if not more. I will take care of you and Drew. I will treat your son just like he’s mine, too, if you’ll let me.”
The tears overflowed her eyes and spilled down her cheeks. “I don’t deserve you,” she said. “And I didn’t deserve Andy. Tammy was right about that. I didn’t love him like I should have. I loved him because he was my best friend. I didn’t love him like a woman should love the man she wants to marry. And I didn’t want to marry him. But I didn’t know how to say no to his proposal without hurting him.”
And with her big, loving heart, she would have given up her own happiness to ensure someone else’s. He didn’t want her doing that for him.
“You won’t hurt me if you tell me no,” he lied. It would hurt him. But he’d heard what she’d said when she’d thought him unconscious. He didn’t think she would tell him no. But he wanted her to say yes for the right reasons. “You’ll hurt me if you say yes and don’t really love me.”
“I love you,” she said. “I love you like a woman loves a man. I love you with passion. I love you like a soul mate, not just as a friend.”
The tightness in his chest eased, and he grinned. “I love how much you talk,” he said. “I really do...especially when you’re telling me how much you love me.” But then he realized what she had yet to say. “But you haven’t answered my question.”
“Did you ask me something?” she asked with a coy flutter of her lashes.
“I will get out of this bed,” he said, but they both knew it was an empty threat at the moment.
“I don’t need the bended knee or the ring,” she said. “I just need the question.”
So he asked, “Will you marry me, Maggie Jenkins? Will you take me as your husband and as Drew’s father?”
“Yes, Special Agent Blaine Campbell,” she replied. “I will marry you.”
He used their joined hands to tug her closer, to pull her down for the kiss to seal their promise.
Someone cleared his throat above the sound of a baby crying. “Excuse me,” Truman said. “But someone was looking for his mama...” The burly agent carried the tiny fussing baby over to Maggie.
She laid the little boy on Blaine’s chest, and the baby’s cries stopped. He stared up at Blaine as if he recognized him. “Here’s your daddy,” she said.
Blaine had a perfect record—every case solved with the FBI, every criminal caught—but this—his family—meant far more to him. This woman and their child was what made his life special now and for always.
* * * * *
Keep reading for an excerpt from THE DEPUTY’S REDEMPTION by Delores Fossen.
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Chapter One
Deputy Colt McKinnon caught the blur of motion from the corner of his eye.
He hit the brakes, not hard, because there was likely some ice on the road, and he pulled his truck to a stop on the gravel shoulder.
There.
He saw it again.
Someone wearing light-colored clothes was darting in and out of the trees. Since it was below freezing and nearly ten at night, it wasn’t a good time for someone to be jogging.
Colt took a flashlight from the glove compartment and got out, sliding his hand over the gun in his belt holster, and he tried to pick through the darkness to see what was going on. Thankfully, there was a full moon, and he got another glimpse of the person.
A woman.
She was running and not just an ordinary run, either. She was in a full sprint as if her life depended on it.
Colt hurried down the embankment toward her to see if anything or anybody was chasing her. There were coyotes in the woods, but he’d never heard of a pack going after a human. However, before he could see much of anything else, the woman ducked behind a tree.
“I have a gun!” she shouted.
Ah, hell.
He instantly recognized the voice. Elise Nichols. A voice he darn sure didn’t want to hear at all, much less her yelling about having a gun.
Her house was a good five miles from here, definitely not close by enough for her to be on foot. So what in the Sam Hill was she doing running in the woods in the middle of the night?
“It’s me—Colt,” he said, just in case she thought he was a stranger.
“I know exactly who you are.” Her voice was loud but very shaky. “And I have a gun.”
“So do I,” he snarled, and Colt drew it to prove his point.
Colt hadn’t exactly expected a warm, friendly greeting from Elise, but he hadn’t thought she was to the point of threatening to do him bodily harm.
“What the heck are you running from?” he asked.
She didn’t jump to answer. The only sounds were the February wind rattling through the bare tree branches and his heartbeat pumping like pistons in his ears.
“I’m running from you,” she finally answered.
Colt jerked back his shoulders. That sure wasn’t the answer he’d been expecting. Nor did it make a lick of sense.
“I’m a deputy sheriff of Sweetwater Springs,” he reminded Elise just in case she was drunk or had gone off the deep end and couldn’t remember what was common knowledge around these parts.
And he reminded her also because her comment riled him.
“People
generally don’t feel the need to run from me,” he added with a syrupy sweetness that she would know wasn’t the least bit genuine.
“They’d run if you were trying to kill them.”
He tried not to let his mouth drop open, but it was close. “And you think that’s what I’m trying to do to you?”
“I know you are. You ran me off the road about fifteen minutes ago.”
He glanced around, didn’t see another vehicle. But there was a road not too far away, and it would have been the one Elise would likely take to get to and from her place located just outside town. It was possible someone had sideswiped her and maybe she’d hit her head during the collision. That was the only explanation he could think of for a fish story like that one.
“Come out so I can see you,” Colt told her, “and I’ll drive you to the hospital.”
She didn’t answer.
Didn’t move, either.
Fed up with Elise herself, her story, the butt-freezing night and this entire crazy situation, Colt huffed. “Get out here!” he ordered.
“Right. So you can kill me,” she accused. “Then I can’t testify at your mother’s trial.”
Good grief. Colt figured that subject would come up sooner or later. But he hadn’t expected it to come up like this, with Elise accusing him of trying to kill her. His mother, Jewell, was the one about to stand trial for murdering her lover twenty-three years ago.
And Elise would be the key witness for the defense.
That alone was plenty bad enough because Colt figured his mom had indeed killed the guy. Anything that Elise would say in Jewell’s defense could be a lie at best, and at worst it could tear his family to pieces.
Because Elise was expected to testify that not Jewell but rather Colt’s father, Roy, had committed the murder.
No way would Colt or his brothers let that happen.
His father wasn’t going to pay for Jewell’s sins.
But there was also no way Colt would murder a witness to stop that testimony from happening. The badge he wore wasn’t for decoration. He believed in the law. Believed that his mother, and Elise, would get what was coming to them.