Zeitgeist
Page 26
“It’s on its way, Fiona,” Charlie stated, materializing beside the officer.
“Grant, stay with me,” she whispered while lowering her face to his. She looked up at Charlie. “The wife. She was in on it.”
“Where is she?”
Fiona lifted a bloody hand to point toward the study and then replaced it on Grant’s chest. Two police officers jostled their way past her, but she held her hands steady while tears raced down her face. She couldn’t lose him, not now. She loved him. She really loved him. More importantly, she trusted him, and she needed him.
Anger rose. She wouldn’t let Clark take anything else from her. He and Whitley and Chad had stripped her of her past, but she was damned if she’d let them have her future. “Grant, open your eyes. Please.”
He opened eyes clouded with shock and pain.
“The EMT’s are on their way. Once they get here, they’re going to take you to the hospital. I’m going to follow you there. Do you hear me? I’m going to follow you, not because I’m stalking you, but because I’m interested.”
She thought she saw the eyes brighten.
“Once you’re better, I’ll bring your suit and dress shoes to the hospital, and then I plan to follow you to a restaurant. I’ll even let you open the door for me.”
The eyes definitely brightened.
“And then I plan to follow, not stalk, you to that depressing house with its pathetic flowers.”
Amusement crinkled at the corners of his eyes. His lips moved, but all she heard was a hissing sound. She leaned close. “What?”
“Got used to me?”
“Yes, dammit. I got used to you.”
“Knew you would.”
She laughed through her tears and glanced up at the sight of the EMT’s shoving their way through the crowd at the door. She rocked back on her heels and watched them work and watched Grant stay alive.
“What happened?” Charlie asked.
“Clark tried to shoot me. Grant decided to protect me. He does that, the idiot!” She saw a shadow of a crooked grin appear beneath the oxygen mask fixed to his face.
Charlie spoke, his voice reflective. “So that’s what he meant when he said there was a difference between stalking and interest.”
Fiona exhaled a shaky breath when the EMT’s lifted Grant to a gurney and began bearing him out the door. She and Charlie walked alongside the gurney to the ambulance, and Grant seemed to gain strength with each step. “Will he be all right?”
“I think so, ma’am. We’ll do our best.” They began loading the gurney onto the ambulance, and Grant waved a hand, making them pause.
“Charlie,” Grant said, his voice not much more than a whisper.
Charlie leaned close to him. “Yes?”
“A black cop just shot a white man. Can I get you and Fiona to join me in a ‘White Lives Matter’ protest?”
Charlie laughed. “You might not have noticed our color.”
“Oh.” Grant appeared to consider the problem. “All right. How about ‘Lives Matter’?”
“Count me in,” the African American police officer said while joining them.
“Me, too,” the EMT’s, one Asian, the other Hispanic, chimed in.
“It’s a date then,” Grant said, wincing when his gurney was slid onto the ambulance. His eyes went to Fiona, and she saw a hint of vulnerability in them. “You meant it? You’re going to follow me?”
“Always.”
Author Biography
Grace Jelsnik earned her M.A. in English with an emphasis on creative writing at the University of South Dakota. Her novels emphasize complicated plots, realistic characters, and rural settings, but each possesses an element of romance that takes a down-to-earth approach to the natural give-and-take interaction between two characters, addressing the sparks that lead to heat, not the heat itself. Her targeted audience is late teen and older readers who enjoy suspense and mystery delivered with a dose of humor.