“What if Bradley did something to her?” Rafe could barely make himself say it, but nothing else made sense. He turned and added his own fist to Nick’s pounding.
The door opened to an angry security guard. “Can I help you?”
Nick explained the situation, but it wasn’t until Rafe stepped up and reminded him that he’d just stayed on a killer bull and he’d be willing to go round two that the guard let them in. Or the guard simply saw the panic in his eyes.
Rafe could barely stand still as they rolled back the tapes of the last hour, then hit Play. People moved in lightning speed, black-and-white figures that seemed somehow ghostly.
“There. That’s her.” Rafe spotted Kat standing in the corridor, hands clasped as she watched him ride. Yeah, that was her, jumping up and down, cheering, fists pumping.
Then she stopped and turned as a figure came toward her. He looked like a regular cowboy, with a wide-brimmed hat, boots, but something . . . Rafe saw him grab her hand, yank her through the crowd and out of view.
“Did that look like she wanted to go with him?” Nick asked.
“I’m going to kill him, whoever he is.”
“Look at the time stamp. Do you have access to any other entrance tapes?”
The security guard brought up images of the four lower entrances on the closest side of the building.
Rafe peered over Nick’s shoulder, his anger alive inside him.
Fifteen minutes passed on the screen.
“She vanished,” the guard said.
“What did he do to her—there, see him?” Rafe pointed to the cowboy, who turned as he opened the back exit door and looked straight at the camera he obviously didn’t realize was there.
Everything inside Rafe seized up as he watched Kat stumble out with Bradley. Her gait, her acquiescence looked odd. Bradley stopped in front of a limousine and shoved her inside. The driver shut their door and climbed in the front. The limo drove away into Manhattan’s bright lights.
“Where are they going?” Rafe’s voice sounded just on the edge of fraying.
It didn’t help when Nick gave him a matching expression. “Piper had this . . . theory that Bradley was trying to—” he put a hand on Rafe’s shoulder—“kill her.”
“What?” Rafe pushed his hand away. “No one told me. Why?”
“Piper thinks he killed his first wife for her money. And Kat’s next.”
Rafe stood there a second, frozen. “Where would he take her?”
“Maybe the Breckenridge Hotel?” Nick was already turning toward the door. “I did a little online surfing about it back when you took out the lobby. You picked a real five star to destroy. It has a helipad.”
Rafe followed Nick as he jogged toward the side exit doors. “Wait—stop! We’ll never catch them in a taxi.”
Nick stopped. “And?”
Rafe grinned. It felt reckless and desperate and exactly what he needed to chase after the woman he loved. “I just won a truck.”
Nick smiled. “Yeah, you did, didn’t you?”
Rafe threw the keys to his brother. “Pick me up. And try not to scratch it.”
Nick took the truck right off the platform, laying on the horn as he drove across the stadium floor toward the giant gate where they’d unloaded the animals. Rafe watched as one of his buddies opened the gate for him. As soon as Nick braked, Rafe climbed in. “Don’t let traffic get in your way,” Rafe said as they peeled out onto Eighth Avenue.
“Go down to Fifty-seventh and hang a right.” Rafe planted his good leg against the floorboard, his hand on the ceiling as Nick wove in and out of traffic to blaring horns and irate taxi drivers.
When Nick turned on Fifty-seventh, Rafe spotted Trump Tower. “It’s only a couple more blocks; turn left on Fifth.”
“Rafe, this is a one-way!” Nick said, already caught in the turn. He pulled out and scooted across the intersection toward Madison. “We’re going to get killed.”
“What are you doing—you missed the turn!”
“It was a one-way, for crying out loud. Calm down. We’ll get there.”
“It’s not the woman you . . . really—just drive!”
Nick took a left on Madison and slammed the brakes. Taxis edged into his path, and they slowed to a crawl.
“I told you driving in Manhattan isn’t that easy. These roads get confusing,” Rafe said, wishing he could get out and run. “Turn left at the next road. It’ll bring us right to the Breckenridge.”
Rafe glanced up at the one-way sign over the light and grimaced.
They turned on Sixtieth and finally back on Fifth into a snarl of traffic.
Rafe had his hand on the door. “It’ll take three years to get there at this speed.”
“We’re stuck.” Nick leaned back and wrapped his hands around the steering wheel.
“Take the sidewalk.”
Nick shot him a look.
“Take the sidewalk.” Rafe pointed to an opening. “It’s clear. And we’re almost there.”
“It’s this kind of thinking that gets you into trouble, you know.”
Rafe already had his hat off, had nearly broken the dashboard when he slammed his fist into it. He just about lost it when he saw a limo turn into the Breckenridge drive. “There’s the limo. Take the sidewalk!”
“I’m not taking the sidewalk! People will get hurt.”
“They’ll move. This is life and death, Nick, please!”
Nick glanced at Rafe, then cranked the wheel, driving onto the sidewalk. “Please, God, don’t let anyone get hurt.”
Rafe leaned over and hit the horn.
Horns answered him.
“Punch it, Nick. They’re moving.”
“You don’t even know that’s the right limo!”
“I can . . . sense it. They’re cutting around, pulling up to the entrance of the hotel.” He dived for the steering wheel, pulling it to the right.
Nick elbowed him back. “I’m driving here!”
“You drive like a granny! Put some gas into it!”
Nick stepped it up, muttering as the limo pulled up to the front. The truck bumped across the plaza, scattering pigeons. Nick laid on the horn as they neared the limo.
The limo kept moving.
“Where’s he going?”
“Calm down, little brother.” Nick hit the gas and the truck jumped forward, then slammed into the back bumper of the limo.
The limo ricocheted and flew into the hotel lobby. Glass shattered; scaffolding rained down on Rafe’s truck.
“He’s not going anywhere,” Nick said as the truck rocked back.
Rafe stared at him. “I think I learned everything I know from you.”
Screams and the sound of sirens cut through the roar of Rafe’s heartbeat.
“What is wrong with you?” The driver of the limo got out, a huge man who looked like he could do serious damage to both of them.
The bellboys crowded Nick’s side of the vehicle while Nick opened his door and slid out.
Rafe climbed out of the pickup, then hopped around the back of the limo. “Kitty!”
The limo door opened. Out stepped an elderly man dressed in black-tie elegance from his gray ascot to his sterling-silver-tipped cane. “I am not Kitty, young man.”
Rafe froze. But in that moment, as steam hissed out of the crumpled radiator of his new truck, as he heard sirens in the distance, he heard a scream. Despite the myriad of other screams, somehow this one found him and rattled him.
Both he and the elderly man turned toward the hotel.
Rafe grabbed a crutch, slid across the crumpled mess of the limousine hood, and landed on the other side.
Confusion reigned in the lobby as guests clogged the construction zone. Bellboys attempted to push the crowd away from the shattered glass and back into the foyer.
Rafe bullied his way through the crowd toward the elevators. The penthouse didn’t have a button. He stood there, breathing hard, his frustration hot in his chest.
Th
e roof. He must have heard her from the roof. He jammed his thumb into the top button. “C’mon!” Please, God, don’t let him hurt Kitty. Please, please.
The elevator opened onto the fifteenth floor. Rafe fumbled to the end of the hall, opening the stairwell. The upper door to the roof was just whooshing closed.
He could hear the whirr of the blades as he climbed the stairs. He heaved the door open.
Bradley had clearly done something to Kitty; she wasn’t walking well. She must have fought back at least a little because her mouth was bleeding. Bradley was trying to wrestle her into the chopper.
“Kitty!”
Bradley turned at Rafe’s voice, and a snarl came over his face.
Kat wrenched away but fell precariously close to the edge of the building.
Please, God, don’t let her go over!
Bradley grabbed her by the neck and pulled her to her feet. “Don’t come any closer, Noble. Or she goes over.”
It looked like Kitty hadn’t the strength to stand, because she kept crumpling, falling over to one side, moving a little farther away from Bradley each time, only to have him yank her back up. What had Bradley done to her?
Rafe breathed hard through his desire to take the man apart slowly, make him hurt. “Okay, listen. I just want Kitty. You can go. Do whatever you want.”
“You never should have interfered. Never come into her life. The fact is, you did this. You wrecked everything. And now . . . you made her so distraught that she’ll have to jump. But psychosis runs in her family.” He smirked. “Sort of.”
“Leave her alone,” Rafe said, watching how Kat clawed at Bradley’s grip. She didn’t seem to be able to look at him but kept edging along the side of the building.
“You want her, you come and get her.” Bradley pushed her, and she disappeared over the edge.
Rafe issued a cry that came from so deep within him that he thought he might lose himself with the breadth of it. He lunged toward the place where she’d been.
Bradley kicked him, dead center on his damaged knee.
The white-hot pain should have stopped Rafe, but it didn’t. He scrambled to the edge, his heart already through his chest, moaning with an agony he’d never felt before. “Kitty!” He couldn’t look.
Bradley kicked him again, and Rafe’s head spun. Through the haze of pain, he saw Kitty.
She’d fallen. But not fifteen floors, thank God in heaven. She lay crumpled on her penthouse balcony, moaning but alive.
Rafe turned just as Bradley raised his leg to kick him in the gut. He caught Bradley’s pant leg and pulled.
Bradley went down with Rafe landing on top of him. Bradley twisted under him, but this time, Rafe didn’t hold anything back. “This is going to really hurt,” he said as he sailed a punch into Bradley’s nose.
Blood spurted as Bradley hollered.
Before Rafe could land the next blow, strong arms clamped around him. They pulled him off Bradley, dragging him toward the door as security swarmed the roof.
CHAPTER 23
“YOU REALLY MADE the papers this time.” Cari came into Kat’s bedroom without knocking, holding a stack of newspapers. She tossed them on the bed. “They all want to know how Bradley Lymon could have been such a creep.”
“That seems to be the universal question.” Kat pushed herself up onto the pillows. “I’m still having a hard time believing that everything you said about him turned out to be true. I knew that something wasn’t right ever since I returned from Montana, but even long before that, I had all those strange migraines. But I never dreamed that he was poisoning me.”
“I doubt many people would immediately assume the person they are going to marry wants to kill them.” Cari sat down next to Kat.
“I should have listened to my friends sooner.” Kat’s arm still ached where she’d smacked it on the balcony. She’d spent at least one night in the hospital, where the doctors had flushed from her system the extra potassium chloride as well as the drug Bradley had shot into her arm at the arena. Thankfully, it hadn’t taken full effect until after she’d fallen off the roof. However, by the time she awoke, Rafe had already been transferred to the Hospital for Special Surgery for his knee. Although she’d called and even pulled some strings, Rafe refused to take her call.
She tried not to let that dig a hole into her heart. But who was she kidding? Obviously Rafe agreed with the papers when they called her “naive.”
“How bad is it?” Kat picked up a paper and saw a photo of herself exiting the hospital. She made a face.
“You look better than Bradley.” Cari pointed to a color picture of Kat’s former fiancé in his broken-nose glory.
Kat cringed. “Yeah, that’s pretty.”
“So, are you feeling better? Back to your normal self?”
Kat leaned back in her pillows. “I don’t think I’ll ever be myself. Actually I’m not sure who I really am. Am I Kitty, a cowgirl who rides horses? Or am I Katherine, my grandfather’s princess?”
“Why can’t you be both?” Cari leaned forward. “Or maybe it’s Kat Noble, philanthropist and lovely wife to New York hero Rafe Noble?” She motioned to a picture of the shattered entrance to the hotel, with Rafe’s picture next to it.
Kat smiled. “Those Nobles sure know how to make an entrance. How angry is Grandfather?”
Cari shrugged. “Not too angry, considering they saved your life—or tried to save your life. He’s even thinking of dropping the first set of charges on the condition that Rafe pays the hotel reconstruction costs.”
“He’ll go broke.”
“Not hardly. He’s got sponsorship offers up to his ears, according to his sister. Like I said, it’s all about spin.”
“But he has to use that money for Manny’s treatment.”
“Rafe donated his entire purse to the Breckenridge Foundation, and I took the liberty of faxing Manny’s medical information and grant application to Mercy Doctors. Hopefully, he’ll be at St. Jude’s by the end of the month.”
“Really? Wow, Cari, thank you so much.”
“And by the way—” she crossed her leg and pulled up her jeans, revealing cactus stiletto boots—“I’m seeing your fascination with bull riders.”
Kat felt a sweet smile building from within. “Speaking of . . . He hasn’t, I mean . . .”
Cari’s smile faded. “No, he hasn’t called. Piper did, though. He was going to start some physical therapy yesterday.”
Kat rubbed the edge of her sheet. Why hadn’t he at least called? “You don’t think he thought that I really wanted to, you know, run away with Bradley?”
“Oh, please. I did arrange to install padding on the sidewalks around the hotel, just in case you decide to take another header off the roof.”
“Funny. I think I remember being pushed.”
“Yeah, well, sources say you were going to jump. Did you know the balcony was below you?”
“I saw it, yeah.”
“Well, even with drugs in your system, your aim was pretty good.”
“How’s Lolly this morning?” Kat had moved her mother into the penthouse after her discharge so she could care for her, but honestly, John did most of the caring. He’d rarely left her bedside. And Angelina had mothered them all.
“She’s better. Had pancakes for breakfast. Oh, and she identified Bradley as her attacker, which made the judge deny him bail. Flight risk.”
“Is she still headed out west to work for Lincoln?”
Cari let out a burst of laughter. “They’re engaged.”
“Lincoln and Lolly? No way, she loves John.”
“You’re absolutely right. John gave her a ring this morning. It’s gorgeous too. The funny thing is that he hasn’t left here once, so he must have had it with him.”
“Gotta like a man who is prepared. Only, I have this feeling he’s been prepared for quite some time.” Unlike someone else she knew. Kat blew out her disappointment and moved the papers off her lap and onto the bed, where she’d scattered her i
Pod, remote control, and recently finished B. J. King novel.
Cari reached across her and picked up Unshackled. “Can I read this? I heard it’s good.”
“It is. I love the romance—Jonas is such a great guy.” Patient. Willing to stand by the woman he loves, unlike some people. Okay, she was clearly still reeling, because Rafe had stood by her—had chased after her.
Apparently, however, he’d changed his mind between then and now. His fingers hadn’t been broken, had they? He could still use a telephone, right?
“Lolly liked the book—and Jonas too.” Cari flipped open the front cover. “Why didn’t you get John to sign it?”
“John? Why would he sign my book?”
“Because he’s the author.” Cari closed the cover. “Didn’t you know that?”
“No. No, I did not know that.” Kat suddenly understood Lolly’s outburst of fury and frustration about being tired of waiting for her happy ending. “Did Lolly?”
“Not until recently. I heard them having that heated conversation yesterday all the way from my office. Before the ring.”
“I can’t believe John didn’t tell her—”
“Would you? Think about it—a cowboy writing love stories?”
“Cowboys sing love songs.”
“To their cows!” Cari lowered her voice. “But as I was coming in this morning, I heard him singing to her, so maybe you’re right.”
Kat smiled, thinking of the song Jonas had sung over and over, and guessed which song John had sung to the woman he loved. “Still, that’s a big secret to keep.” She might have decked him.
The thought made her sigh. No, she wasn’t Katherine Breckenridge, because she would have never considered decking someone. But apparently she wasn’t Kitty either.
“Not as big as embezzling money from your rich fiancée.” Cari dropped the book into her bag.
“I can’t believe that Bradley fooled me—all of us—so badly.”
“He didn’t fool Piper. Or me. I knew there was something about him I didn’t like. I think the moral of this story is that all that glitters isn’t gold.”
“I should have seen through him too,” said a voice behind her.
Kat found a smile for her grandfather as Cari got up and stepped aside. “I wanted to check on you before I left for London.” He looked more tired than usual, lines on his handsome face, his white hair thinner. He still carried the regal Breckenridge air, however, in a three-piece suit, carrying his sterling-silver-tipped cane. He sat on the side of her bed and took her hand. “I wanted to tell you how sorry I am.”
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