by Lisa Childs
Or maybe she’d found the killer.
Juliette gripped her weapon tightly as she approached that train car just as Sasha managed to leap up and get inside it. She nearly called her back, but she didn’t want to alert the man to her presence yet—if he was inside it.
She wanted to get closer, but she didn’t get much nearer before flashes of light emanated from inside the car and gunfire rang out.
* * *
Blake pressed his hands against the floor of the train station and tried to push himself up. But his muscles felt strangely weak, and he couldn’t summon the strength to push up. So he tried drawing up his knees, too, but pain gripped his side with such intensity that his vision blurred, turning everything black.
He dropped to the ground again, into something wet and sticky. And he realized he was bleeding.
Badly. So badly that there was a pool of blood beneath him. He’d been shot. He hadn’t realized it right away. He’d thought just knocking her down had knocked the breath from his lungs. He hadn’t realized that the burning feeling inside him was a bullet.
Juliette was going to be so pissed at him. But then he heard more gunfire ringing out—outside the station. And he flinched.
The killer had not given up. He was still trying to take Juliette out. Blake closed his eyes and prayed that Juliette survived—for Pandora’s sake.
He didn’t want the child to be all alone, and he wasn’t sure that he was going to make it. He could feel his blood pumping out—along with his life.
Then consciousness slipped away from him entirely.
* * *
Fenwick’s heart lurched with dread when he saw the flashing lights on the roof of the vehicle that careened through his gates. He was already opening the front door when Finn rushed up to him.
“What’s wrong? What is it?” But he knew: Blake. Blake had been hurt.
“Come with me,” Finn told him. Usually the police chief sounded irritated with him. Now he sounded almost gentle as if Fenwick was a child.
He felt like a child as he obediently walked toward the car. A female officer stood next to the open back door.
Was this the woman? The one his son had been following around? As he drew closer, he recognized her as a Gage instead. No. This wasn’t Juliette Walsh.
“Mr. Colton,” she greeted him, and her brown eyes were warm with sympathy. “I’m sorry...”
His stomach lurched now. I’m sorry was what people told you as a condolence.
Was Blake dead?
“Get in,” Finn told him. “I’ll bring you to the hospital.”
Hospital didn’t reassure Fenwick any. The morgue was in the basement of the hospital. Blake could have been in it, and maybe Finn was bringing him to identify the body.
But if that was the case, he couldn’t ask. The words stuck in his throat along with all the raw emotion. He’d been such a fool where his son was concerned—so stubborn and proud. But then, Blake had acted the same way.
They were two of a kind.
Or they had been...
Fenwick ducked his head inside the car and crawled into the back seat. It wasn’t empty. A little girl sat buckled into a booster chair. She blinked sleepy eyes at him.
Green eyes. Like his son’s.
Would he see his son again?
Finn slid into the driver’s seat while the woman went around the car to squeeze in on the other side of the booster chair.
Fenwick wanted to ask what was going on, what had happened. But all he could do was stare at the child. She smiled shyly at him, and a deep dimple creased her left cheek.
Blake was right.
There was no need for a paternity test. The child was clearly his. She was beautiful.
“Hi, sweetheart,” he murmured. He was a grandfather. He had a granddaughter.
The thought humbled and terrified him at the same time. He’d failed miserably as a father. Could he do a better job now? As a grandparent?
Some of his friends claimed that their grandkids had given them a second chance to do it right now. Others just enjoyed spoiling them.
“Are you going to see my mommy and daddy too?” she asked him.
He glanced across her at the Gage woman. Was it safe for the girl to be out? Wasn’t the child supposed to be in some kind of protective custody?
“Yes,” he replied. “I am.”
“My name is Pandora,” she introduced herself.
She looked to be barely more than a toddler, but she acted so old for her age, so mature. Apparently her mother had done a respectable job as a single parent. Maybe he’d misjudged the young policewoman.
“What’s your name?” she asked him.
His heart warmed his chest, chasing away some of the chill over worrying about Blake. “Grandfather,” he replied, his voice gruff with emotion. The word was nearly too big for him, so it was certainly too big for her. He amended, “Grandpa. I’m your grandpa.”
“Mommy said Grandpa died a long time ago,” she replied, her green eyes narrowed with suspicion.
“She must have been talking about her daddy,” he said. “I’m your daddy’s daddy.”
She nodded. “Daddy got hurt.” She glanced at the woman next to her. “That’s what Elle said.”
He stared over her head at Officer Gage, wondering what the hell she’d been thinking to tell her that. Despite how mature she acted, the little girl was still just a child. A child who’d witnessed a murder already, though. Maybe the policewoman had thought it better to prepare than to shield her.
“He got hurt saving Mommy.”
“So Mommy’s all right?” he asked. He couldn’t imagine if the child were to lose both her parents. Would he be responsible for her then?
She nodded. “She caught the bad guy. He can’t hurt nobody else no more.”
But before Officer Walsh had caught him, he had hurt somebody. He’d hurt Blake.
How badly?
Finn kept the lights flashing and the sirens blaring the entire way to the hospital—as if he was worried that they might not get there in time.
How badly had Blake been hurt?
Fenwick couldn’t ask. And not just because of the little girl being present. He couldn’t ask because he wasn’t sure he wanted to know yet.
But they arrived at the hospital within minutes of leaving his estate. Finn opened his door for him. When Fenwick stepped out, his legs shook beneath him, and the younger man had to grab his arm to steady him. Fenwick wasn’t sure he would be able to handle it if Blake was gone—if he never had the chance to repair their relationship.
Elle Gage had taken the little girl from her booster chair and carried her. But Pandora wriggled free of the policewoman. Then she reached out and grasped Fenwick’s hand with her small one. It was surprisingly strong, though. She held on to him tightly as they walked into the hospital.
For her sake and his, he hoped Blake was all right.
Chapter 25
Juliette heard the automatic doors swish open to the hospital lobby. It was a small hospital, but it still could have been anyone arriving. She was looking for Pandora, though. She’d asked Elle to bring her down because she hadn’t wanted to spend another minute apart from her.
And it was safe now. The killer was in one of the operating rooms. Juliette had put another bullet in his shoulder while Sasha had put quite a gash in his arm. If her partner hadn’t latched onto him, the guy might have shot Juliette like he had Blake.
Thanks to Sasha and Blake, she was uninjured, though, while Blake was having surgery in another one of the operating rooms. She’d had Elle warn Pandora that her daddy was hurt because she didn’t want the little girl to be surprised when she saw him. And she had to see him...just like Juliette had to see him.
She had to tell him she loved him—that she would go with him anywhere if h
e really didn’t think he could stay in Red Ridge. She had been crazy to turn down his offer. She knew now that she would take whatever he could give her—even if that wasn’t his love.
When she’d returned to the train station and had found him lying on the floor in that pool of blood...
She shuddered at the memory. One of the bodyguards had been on the ground next to him, staunching the blood with a shirt pressed to the wound. Hopefully Blake hadn’t lost too much blood. Hopefully he would be fine...
He had to be fine.
“Mommy!” a little voice called out.
She turned to see Pandora walking into the waiting room. But she was not alone. She held the hand of a familiar, older man. Blake’s father.
“This is my grandpa,” Pandora told her as if making introductions at one of her tea parties.
Juliette nodded. She had no idea what to say to the man. Sorry I got your son shot didn’t seem appropriate—at least not in front of her daughter—even though it was an accurate account of what had happened.
Pandora saved her from having to say anything when she tugged on Fenwick Colton’s hand until he looked down at her. “Mommy says Daddy is a prince,” she told him. “So that makes you a king.”
A chuckle slipped out of him. “I’m hardly a king, sweetheart.”
Since he was the mayor, some people referred to him as the king of Red Ridge. But that was probably because he tried to rule it like a dictator.
He squeezed the little girl’s hand and told her, “But yes, your daddy is a prince—a prince among men.”
“A hero,” Juliette told him. “He saved my life.”
“How is he?” Fenwick asked her.
“The doctor should be out here soon,” she said. “He’ll tell you.” He wouldn’t talk to her. She wasn’t next of kin. She was nothing to Blake but his baby mama.
The waiting room doors swished opened again, and four women rushed inside—Blake’s sisters. They hurried over to their father but stopped short when they saw Pandora holding on to his hand. He picked up the child and told her, “These are your aunties.”
“Auntie Layla.” He pointed toward the blonde whose hair was cut in a face-framing bob.
“Auntie Bea.” This blonde’s hair was longer and wavy. She was clearly stunned at her new title, though, her mouth falling open in shock.
“Auntie Patience,” Fenwick continued.
The dark-haired vet smiled at the little girl.
“And Auntie Gemma,” he said.
The chestnut-haired woman stared at Pandora, her dark eyes wide and filled with horror. She was clearly not a fan of children.
But Pandora was a fan of beauty. She stared at the woman in awe and almost reverently whispered, “You are so pretty. You must be a princess.”
Layla and Patience laughed. And Patience said, “She guessed that right.”
Gemma smiled back at the little girl. “Well, aren’t you a sweetie?”
Fenwick tightened his arm around the child. “Isn’t she? She’s amazing.”
Patience walked over to Juliette and whispered, “Guess he doesn’t need that paternity test after all.”
So that really had been his father pushing for that, not Blake. Blake had never questioned Pandora’s paternity—except the first moment he’d seen her.
He’d known before he’d ever asked, though. He’d known the minute he saw her.
“Mommy, we got a big family now for tea parties,” Pandora said. “It’s not just you and me anymore.”
Her face flushed with embarrassment. While Fenwick Colton had accepted his granddaughter, she doubted he would accept Juliette—especially since it was her fault that his son had gotten shot.
Patience squeezed her arm. “She’s right...”
But Juliette shook her head. “She’s young.” And too naive to understand how the real world worked. Cinderella never wound up with Prince Charming in Juliette’s world—in Red Ridge.
The waiting room doors opened again, but these were the ones from the employee part of the hospital. A surgeon stepped through them. Was this Blake’s doctor Or the killer’s?
Juliette didn’t care how the man she’d shot was doing. She cared only about Blake.
“Family of Blake Colton?” he called out.
Juliette gasped. And the color drained from the face of every one of Blake’s family members—even his dad. It didn’t sound good—not for the doctor to call out like that, like he was making a notification.
Juliette had had to do that a couple of times when she and Sasha had found some teenagers who died of a drug overdose. She’d felt so horribly for them. It had been the worst feeling of her life until her daughter had been threatened and then Blake had been shot.
His dad turned and handed Pandora to Juliette before heading toward the doctor. But Patience took the child from her arms and handed her to Elle. Then she grabbed Juliette’s hand and tugged her along behind her father.
“You’re family now,” Patience said.
But she wasn’t.
Fenwick’s throat visibly moved as if he was choking down fear. “How—how is he, Doctor?” he asked.
“He lost quite a bit of blood from the wound, but all his organs were missed. Except for some tissue damage, which should heal quickly because he’s young and healthy, he’s going to be just fine.”
There was a sudden expulsion of air, as if everyone had released the breath he or she had been holding.
Fenwick reached out a shaky hand and grabbed the doctor’s. He pumped it in a hearty handshake. “Thank you. Thank you! When can I see him?”
“He’s in recovery now. I can take you.”
Fenwick started after the doctor, but Patience called him back. “Dad. You should let Juliette go.”
She shook her head. “No. No. I wouldn’t...his father should go.”
Pandora must have wriggled down from Elle’s arms because she was pulling on Juliette’s hand. “Is Daddy okay? Is Daddy okay?”
Juliette nodded and smiled. “He’s just fine.”
And with the killer caught, he would stay that way. He wouldn’t have to put himself in danger to protect her anymore. She watched Fenwick walk off with the doctor, and she longed to go with him.
While she believed the doctor that Blake would be fine, she wanted to see for herself that he was. Hell, she just wanted to see him. That wasn’t all she wanted to do, though. She wanted to touch him and hold him and kiss him and tell him that she loved him.
That she had always loved him.
And she didn’t care if she made a fool of herself.
* * *
Finn had not gone inside the hospital with the others. He’d stopped to talk to the officers who’d arrived from the crime scene at the train station.
“Did you find out who he is?” he asked Carson Gage.
The detective shook his head. “Still haven’t ID’d him. We took prints from the train car he was in when Walsh shot him, but Katie didn’t get a hit yet.”
Their tech was the best. If his prints were in the system, Katie would find them. But if he was as good as he seemed to be, maybe he’d never been caught before.
“I saw him,” Dante Mancuso said as he joined them.
Finn had sent him in at the last moment—when he’d started thinking about how easily that kid had given up the information to Juliette. Too easily...
But by the time reinforcements had shown up, it would have been too late—had Blake not jumped in front of that bullet and taken it for Juliette.
“You saw him at the scene?” Finn asked, not understanding what Mancuso meant.
“I saw him before going in and out of the Larson twins’ real estate office,” Mancuso said.
“Really?” he asked, as excitement coursed through him. Maybe this was it—the break he needed to finally bring dow
n the twins.
Dante nodded. “Sure of it.”
Carson sighed and cautioned them, “That alone doesn’t prove a thing. He could have been buying or renting property through them.”
Finn could guess what kind of property. He’d arrived at the hospital worried only about one man surviving his gunshot wound. Now he wanted the killer to survive, as well—so they could get him to talk. He was facing so many charges, including murder, that he might be convinced to turn over evidence against the Larsons in exchange for a deal.
Finn would call the district attorney—right after he’d checked on his cousin.
* * *
Blake must have still been unconscious. That was the only excuse for what he was seeing—his father weeping beside his bed. Tears streaked down the man’s suddenly old-looking face while his shoulders shook with sobs.
He reached out and tried to pat his head. “It’s okay...” he murmured weakly. “I’m alive...”
His father pressed a hand to his face, as if trying to hide his tears now. But it was too late. Blake had seen them. There was a time that he wouldn’t have believed his father cared if he was alive or dead. Fenwick had certainly never called and checked on him after Blake had left Red Ridge.
His dad drew in a deep, shuddering breath and straightened his shoulders. “I—I know that...” His shoulders slumped again, and his voice cracked when he continued, “I just came so close to losing you forever.”
“I’m fine,” Blake assured him. At least, he hoped he was. He still felt so damn weak like he had when he hadn’t been able to get up from the floor of the train station. But at least his side wasn’t burning like it had been. It was mercifully numb now.
“That’s what the doctor says,” his father confirmed. “But I can’t get over how close a call you had...”
Blake didn’t care about himself right now, though. He remembered the gunshots he’d heard right before he’d lost consciousness. “Juliette,” he said. “Is she okay?”