Chayton

by Danielle Bourdon

  Missing an oncoming car by a narrow margin, Kate got the Camaro going in the direction of the highway, which was a mere two blocks ahead. She swerved onto the onramp, picking up speed quickly.

  Merging with traffic, heart pounding in her chest, she got on the gas again, pushing the speed limit and more.

  Kate knew she was going to have a tough time losing Anton on the freeway. His driver was probably a lot more aggressive behind the wheel than she was. It didn't slow her down. Catching up to traffic, she veered between cars, trying to make Anton's white sedan—several lengths back—lose sight of her. If she could get off the highway again without him seeing her, Anton would probably waste precious miles chasing thin air while she took cover elsewhere in the city.

  There wasn't enough traffic at this time of day to make it happen. And the white sedan was coming up fast, blowing past an SUV, a Corvette and a beat up old truck.

  Somewhere behind the sedan, another car was speeding through the maze of traffic, swerving in and out and even into the emergency lane.

  More of Anton's thugs. She imagined both cars boxing her in and forcing her to the side of the road. At the very last second, when the final offramp for the city flashed ahead, Kate cut across all lanes, causing several cars behind her to brake hard, smoke curling off the asphalt. The vehicles wound up sitting cockeyed in the road until the drivers recovered and slowly started forward again. With such chaos, Anton and the other SUV were forced to slow down.

  Speeding down the offramp, nearly out of control with the gas pegged down, Kate fought the wheel and barely made the corner at the stop light. The back end of the Camaro swung wide, and Kate clenched her teeth, prepared for impact. Shooting forward, maintaining control by a hairsbreadth, Kate frantically searched for somewhere to hide the car. Horns honking in the distance behind her let her know that Anton was still coming.

  Taking the first right, she got onto a service road that ran parallel to the freeway. It was an older road, with several potholes that bounced her around inside the car. Buildings fell away, leaving just stretches of golden desert instead of a city.

  In the rearview, the white sedan gained on her.

  She hadn't lost Anton at all.

  Even the black SUV had almost caught up to the sedan, giving Anton the advantage of two cars against one.

  Kate got on the gas again, holding onto the wheel with both hands. She didn't like going this fast, hated the way the landscape whipped past in a blur out the windows. It felt too much like the edge of control could be lost at any second.

  The gauge tipped past ninety. Ninety-five.

  From a scrub bush on the side of the road, from the right, something darted onto the asphalt. All Kate saw was a glimpse of a long tail and fur. A scream erupted as she turned the wheel and stood on the brakes, sending the Camaro into a hard fishtail, and then onto the dirt and gravel.

  Her world tipped hard to the right as the front wheel dipped into a shallow ravine, and then she was spinning. Tumbling, as if someone had tossed her and her car into a dryer, bouncing over and over like weightless toys.

  . . .

  “That has to be them.” Chayton, sitting forward in the seat of the SUV, gripped the dashboard while he watched a cherry red Camaro peel out of the hotel parking lot. A white sedan followed, careening recklessly into traffic.

  “I agree. Who else would be driving that chaotically from this particular hotel,” Mattias said from the back seat.

  Leander, behind the wheel, got on the gas even though the light at the intersection was red. He dodged an oncoming car, got held up by a pedestrian who decided to cross after the speeding sedan, and finally had a straight shot down the road. He picked up speed as the cars ahead ducked through traffic, nearly causing a collision at the next light.

  Chayton hissed. “If only I had her phone number. We've got to catch that other car.”

  “I'm trying, old man. I'm trying.” Leander ran another red light, forced to slow down so he didn't cause an accident as well. Once he got onto the onramp, he picked up speed, gaining quickly on the sedan.

  “How do you want to do this?” Mattias asked.

  “I'm not sure. Disable the white sedan for sure. But we don't know if Anton or his driver is armed, which makes it riskier.” Chayton had seen at least two people in the white car as it shot out of the hotel parking lot. Other than that, he wasn't sure how many more men might be in the back seat thanks to the tinted windows.

  “There might be more men in the back, too,” Mattias said, as if reading Chayton's mind.

  “Yes. But we've got to get him off her tail.” He considered the situation as they merged onto the highway. “Why don't we ram him? Try to pick a spot where he's not too close to her, or too close to other traffic.”

  “That's probably our only option. If we shoot out the tires, we're going to have the police here a lot sooner than we'd like,” Mattias added.

  “We'll be lucky if someone doesn't call anyway,” Leander said, veering around a slower moving vehicle. He sped up again, gaining on the sedan. “So, ram it?”

  “Yes. Try to just make them spin out, rather than drive them totally off the road.” Chayton checked his weapon, assuring himself the safety was off and a round was in the chamber. In the back, Mattias did the same.

  “All right, as soon as we pass these—what the hell!” Leander cursed as the Camaro suddenly cut across all the lanes, forcing other cars to slam on the brakes or collide. He hit the brakes, too, cursing as he narrowly missed the Corvette.

  “She's getting off the freeway! And there goes Anton, right behind her.” Chayton threw out his own curse as Leander corrected and sped after the sedan. At least Anton or his driver had also got caught up in the sudden braking of so many cars, forcing him to slow down. It helped the SUV close the distance.

  “Catch up as soon as you can, Leander, and get Anton off her tail. She's getting desperate,” Mattias said, hanging onto the front seat with one hand.

  “Working on it,” Leander said. He spun into a turn at the light, then barreled down a service road, making up good ground between the SUV and the sedan.

  “Good, good. We'll get him right up here,” Chayton said. He was tempted to lean out the window and shoot the tires out anyway. They were leaving the town behind and the chances of coming across other cars on this road were slim. Chayton wasn't sure where the road ended, but he wanted to get Anton off Kate's bumper before she had to make any more hard decisions.

  The next thing he knew, the Camaro was fishtailing in the road, then off the road, and into a shallow ditch.

  “No!” he shouted, as the Camaro dipped, then caught air and rolled, the velocity forcing two rotations before miraculously landing hard on all four wheels. The crash happened in a world that had slowed to a crawl for Chayton, seconds ticking by like hours. The thud-and-snap of metal preceded a final slam into the desert, dirt kicking up from the impact.

  The sedan, following the Camaro at a high rate of speed, braked hard, sending it into a spin. Slamming into a light pole, the hood popped open, the entire passenger door crumpling toward the middle of the vehicle.

  It was an ugly series of accidents, scarring the otherwise calm day with armageddon-like noises.

  Leander brought the SUV to a halt on the side of the road with a bark of tires on asphalt. Chayton was moving even before the vehicle came to a complete stop. He threw open the door and jumped out. “Call 911,” he said before he ran for Kate's smoking car.

  Just for a moment, Chayton hoped they were all wrong, and this wasn't Kate's car. Or, if it was, maybe someone else had hopped in and Anton pursued because he thought she was the driver. Those and many other thoughts tore through his mind as his boots thudded from the road onto the dry desert dirt. He didn't want to arrive and find Kate dead. Whatever else they needed to work out, Chayton didn't want this to be the end. All he could remember was her fire the night he'd met her, the care she took with his stitches, the way he sometimes caught her looking at him. The
passionate night they'd spent in bed. He remembered the gazes they'd traded in the moonlight that said a lot more than words ever could.

  “Chayton, Chayton,” Mattias said when he caught up. Holding onto his elbow, he brought Chayton to a halt.

  Chayton met Mattias's eyes. He knew what his friend was going to say before he said it.

  “Do you want me to go first?” Mattias asked.

  Chayton glanced at the Camaro. He couldn't see the driver from this angle, or whether there were passengers. No bodies littered the ground, and for that he was thankful. He wasn't sure how he would handle it if he came upon Kate mangled and unrecognizable. It would be the last way he remembered her, he knew, whatever he found there.

  “Yeah, yeah.” Chayton hung back as Mattias jogged around the corner of the car toward the front. Somewhere behind him, he could hear Leander on the phone with emergency services. Without having to look, he also knew Leander was checking on the status of the other car's occupants.

  “Chayton!” Mattias called. “It's Kate. She's alive.”

  Running around the end of the Camaro, Chayton came up on Mattias's flank. The prince, bent down near the driver's window, pried at a deflated air bag. He could see Kate, strapped into the seat with her belt tight across her body, head lolling to the side. Unconscious, not dead. A little blood trickled from her hairline and her cheek was discolored with the start of a bruise. She was in much better shape than he thought she'd be. Chayton bent down, reaching in to smooth a lock of hair gently away from her temple. The strands, wet with blood, stuck to her skin.

  “Kate, I'm here. Can you hear me? We've called emergency services and they'll get you out. Just hold on. Hold on, baby.” Chayton thought she looked pale and fragile, but then, he reminded himself, anyone in this predicament probably would. It didn't mean she was dying.

  The crunch of shoes on dirt announced Leander's arrival. “Anton's dead. No question. The guy in the back seat, too, but the driver's hanging on. Barely. Rescue should be here shortly.”

  “Good, good. She's alive but unconscious.” Chayton knew better than to move her before the ambulance and other rescue workers got there. A small part of Chayton mourned the missed opportunity to deal with Anton himself. The other part only felt relief that Anton was gone, a threat to Kate no longer.

  In the distance, sirens began to wail. Soon, fire trucks, ambulances and police cars sat scattered on the road. Rescue workers struggled to free Kate and the lone survivor of the sedan crash. While Chayton hovered at the backs of the rescuers, he heard snippets of conversation from officers behind him. No seat belts worn in the sedan. The survivor was lucky. Airbags. Name is Kate Fair----. Pursued. Hotel. Hospital. The words and sentences ran together, overlapping until he drowned it all out. Mattias and Leander answered what questions they could, filling in the police about the situation. Chayton could do nothing but watch as rescuers pulled Kate's body out of the Camaro, her thin frame secured to a board.

  “I want to ride with her,” Chayton said, following the personnel to the open back doors of the ambulance.

  “Sure, sure. Hop in,” one of the EMTs said.

  Chayton called back to Mattias and Leander, letting them know where he was going, then climbed in.

  Hunkering down in the tight confines, he stayed out of the way while the EMTs hooked up monitors and took vital signs. Keeping her alive en route to the hospital.

  All Chayton could do was hope and pray that she made it.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Beeps, clicks and the quiet hum of machines ushered Kate into awareness. For the first few minutes she left her eyes closed while she fought through a web of confusion over her whereabouts, and what had happened. She couldn't recall the hotel room having this much noise first thing in the morning.

  The further she clawed her way up from sleep, the more she experienced a sense of urgency. An urgency for what? To do what? She wasn't sure. An extreme jolt of melancholy followed, and then she remembered.

  Chayton was dead.

  They hadn't had any kind of chance to explore what might have happened between them. Bits of memory surfaced of their explosive first meeting, the kindness of his eyes in more tender moments, and the feel of his body over hers.

  She would live with regret for the rest of her life.

  The beeps and clicks intruded, reminding Kate that all was not as it should be. These sounds were not a normal part of her routine. She fluttered her lashes open, squinting at first against a gentle glare. The clinical smell was new, as was the strange tiles in the ceiling. Tension shifted through her body, tightening muscles that were aching and sore.

  It was then, as her memories started coming back with increasing awareness, that she remembered the car chase.

  Anton had found her.

  Although she wanted to sit up and get out of bed, lethargy held her sway. Her body felt like it weighed a thousand pounds. She discovered that small tubes and wires protruded from her arms, linked to the beeping, clicking machines.

  She was in a hospital.

  Visions of dust and the earth flipping over and over and the echo of crunching metal accompanied the next memory: she had crashed the Camaro.

  “Kate? Kate, are you awake?”

  The voice, familiar and male, sent a shockwave through Kate. She focused in on the face that loomed above the bed, over her head, coming directly into her line of sight.

  Chayton's face. His hair was loose, a few black shanks half obscuring his profile.

  Kate considered then that she might be dead. Thoughts of heaven and hospitals and another niggling fear, something else she needed to remember, faded when he stroked her cheek with his fingertips.

  “What are you doing here?” she asked first.

  “Sitting with you. You had a nasty accident last evening.” He stroked her cheek again, blue eyes sharp with concern. “Do you remember any of it?”

  “I...I think so. Yes. I crashed my car.”

  “Yes, you did.”

  “And...Anton and his henchmen were...were following me.” More imagery flickered through her mind. As the details slowly emerged, her memory expanded and grew.

  “They crashed, too,” Chayton said.

  “They did?” Her brows beetled into a frown. “How?”

  “Their car hit a light pole after spinning out of control. Anton's dead, Kate.”

  “Am I dead, too?” It sounded like such a silly question after it was out of her mouth.

  Chayton chuckled and sat on the edge of the bed after lowering the guard rail. “No, Kate. You're not dead. Neither am I. Espinosa mentioned you thought I was. But as you can see, I'm very much alive.” He paused, as if to let her absorb that, then said, “You're in a hospital in Illinois and they're taking very good care of you.”

  She wasn't dead. That was a relief. And he wasn't dead, either, which was more of a relief than anything so far. Anton was, according to Chayton, though she didn't experience any joy over the fact.

  “I heard him making 'plans' for your body. On an airplane.” That memory came unbidden at the last second. “And I heard a shot in Hawaii. He made it seem as if he'd killed you.”

  “He tried to. There was an assassin waiting at the beach house we shared when I got back. I'm guessing Anton wanted you to think I was dead either way so you'd marry him.”

  “I ran. He took me home, to New York, and I told Jones—he's the butler—to call the police while I escaped from my bedroom balcony. I knew Anton would have killed me, too, just like he did my mother after he got what he wanted. So I didn't stick around.” The niggling feeling that she was forgetting something increased. All of a sudden, it struck: the baby. She was pregnant. Opening her mouth, she almost blurted out the question of whether or not the baby had survived. At the last second, she backed off, instead asking, “Will you get the doctor for me?”

  “It's good you thought to get away as soon as possible. There is other news about—are you okay?” He frowned.

  Kate knew how sharp Ch
ayton could be, knew he likely picked up on her hesitation and last minute switch. She had no idea where they stood as a couple, or what would happen from here. Before she dropped the news that she was carrying their baby, she wanted to see if there still was a baby, and then she would go from there. For all she knew, Chayton had coerced her whereabouts from Espinosa and was on his way to her with divorce papers. Or maybe he was here now with them, just waiting for her to recover.

  The thought chilled Kate to the bone.

  She and Chayton had their issues and their problems, but she wanted time to figure out what they meant to each other. Hawaii had changed things in her mind, from the pre-party tension to the protective way he'd stood up for her, to the hours afterward in bed.

  “Yes, I'm okay. I have a few questions,” Kate said, and it was the truth. Just not all of the truth.

  Still frowning, Chayton eased off the bed and raised the guard rail. “I'll get her.”

  Kate hated the vague distance she sensed growing in Chayton and reached out to skim her fingertips over the back of his hand. He smiled a little for it, then turned on a heel and departed the room.

  Exhaling, she watched him go, anxious for the doctor to come in and tell her good news.

  . . .

  Chayton found Doctor Witten and made Kate's wish known. After, he strolled the halls of the hospital, taking a roundabout route to the waiting area. Hands in the pockets of his pants, he ignored a few direct looks aimed his way—probably for his unbound hair—and considered the situation.

  Kate, it appeared, would be all right. Her injuries were amazingly minor in relation to the car crash; a few serious cuts, scrapes, bruises and a sprained wrist was the worst of it. The doctors repeated several times how lucky she was, and that it was a good thing she'd been restrained. She would probably feel like a train ran her over for the next week thanks to sore muscles, but overall, she would be just fine. Anton was dead, leaving Kate to pick up the shattered pieces of her life to start over.

  And where would she start over? He didn't know if she wanted to try with him, or if she wanted freedom. Now that there was no reason to keep up the ruse of a marriage, would she ask for an annulment?