Sweetest Temptations (16 page)

21

There was so much blood, that I couldn’t tell where it was all coming from. As Kennedy lay bleeding, I pressed my hands to the move obvious wounds—one in his side and the other in his upper left chest.

“How does it feel to know you’re about to lose something you care about?” Findlay taunted me. “To know something you had hopes and plans for has been taken from you?”

I gritted my teeth, the urge to lash out strong. But I wasn’t the one with the gun. “We need an ambulance.” My voice trembled as I watched the life draining from Kennedy’s face. His skin held a sickly pallor that scared me.

“You think I’m going to help you?” Findlay laughed. “You really are a stupid bi—”

“Call a fucking ambulance, you piece of shit!” I was on my feet in an instant, rage surging through me and making me brave. Findlay’s expression was one of shock, as if he never expected me to stand up to him. But I was now.

“Sit down and shut up before I shoot you, too.”

“Go ahead and shoot me then, because if you don’t make that call
right now
, neither one of us is leaving here unless it’s on a stretcher.”

Findlay opened his mouth to say something, and then stopped, tilting his head to the side as if listening. Then I heard it. The faint sound of sirens in the distance.

My lip curled.
Finally
. “That’s right, Findlay. I called the cops. I guess you should have thought this out a little better, huh?” I’m not sure what I thought he would do. Panic? Maybe try and make a break for it through the back door? What I didn’t expect was for Findlay to sink into an absolute state of calm.

“Well played,” he said, raising the gun higher and taking aim at me. “I didn’t think you had it in you, but you’ve certainly made this night interesting.”

Why was he still standing here talking? “Aren’t you going to run or something? Before your police friends storm in here and find out it was you all along?”

“Oh, I’m sure they have some idea, and you’re wrong. They’re not my friends. When I turned in my badge last night, not one of them shed a tear or asked me to stay. Can you believe that? Fifteen years on the force and all I get is a pat on the back as I walk out the door. So you see, I’ve got nothing left to lose.” His face shifted and he bared his teeth. “You took it all.”

His face was the last thing I saw before he pulled the trigger.

***

I woke up in the hospital some time later feeling as if I’d been run over by an eighteen-wheeler. A nurse with pale hair and small features smiled at me as she replaced my IV drip. “Well hello there. My name is Crystal, and I’m your nurse for the evening. How are you feeling?”

“What happened? Where’s Kennedy?” I sat up, searching the room.

“You’ve had quite a night. Let me go grab the doctor and he’ll answer all your questions.”

Once the doctor finally decided to grace me with his presence, I issued the same questions as before. “You were involved in a shooting. Fortunately, the bullet missed,” he said as I ran my hands over myself for the point of entry. “You fainted, which is why you’re here now. You hit your head pretty hard on the floor, but we performed a CT scan and everything looks good.”

“When am I getting out of here?” I asked, my thoughts focused on finding Kennedy.

“We can have you out of here within the hour. I’ll have someone at the desk start the paperwork.”

While I waited, I tried to stay on my best behavior and keep to my room. The doctor refused to tell me anything about Kennedy, or Dex or Ronnie, for that matter. We weren’t married or related, so they couldn’t release their information to me. They wouldn’t even tell me if we were in the same hospital.

I distracted myself with what the doctor had said about my injuries instead. I hadn’t been shot. I’d fainted. What a horribly girlie thing to do! I was embarrassed for myself. But if I hadn’t been shot, who had? God, what if Findlay had killed Ken instead?

Moments away from a full-blown panic attack, someone knocked on my door. I looked up to see Jack’s smiling face. “Hey, you’re awake. We were wondering when you’d come around.” As he walked in, several more of Kennedy’s crew filed in behind him.

“Hey, what are you doing here? I thought personal information wasn’t allowed to be given to non-family members.”

“Haven’t you heard? Heroes get special privileges. And who says we’re not family?”

I accepted hugs from everyone, warmed by their outward show of caring. “Do any of you know how Ken is? No one will tell me anything, and I’m kind of freaking out.”

Standing at the foot of my bed, Jack’s stony expression was difficult to read. “They took him into surgery a couple hours ago to try and repair the damage. He’s lost a lot of blood, but the guy’s tough as nails. He’ll be climbing ladders in no time.”

His words didn’t make me feel any better. Jack gripped my ankle through the blankets. “We’ve lost good men before, but today isn’t one of those times, okay?”

I nodded, unable to speak for the lump in my throat.

“You should know your friends have already gone home. They told me to tell you they’d check in on you later.”

My gaze shot up. “They’re okay?”

“Yeah, the shorter one was shot in the outer thigh. It passed right through, so they patched him up and sent him on his way, and the pretty one walked away without a scratch.”

“What about Findlay? Did he get away?”

Jack laughed darkly. “He’s upstairs in ICU. When numb nuts tried to shoot you, the bullet went wide, hit the metal wall and bounced back, hitting him in the hip. He would have bled out if we hadn’t already been there.”

“You were there?”

“First responders. A call came in there’d been shots fired and, surprise surprise, we beat the police to the scene. Normally, we’re not supposed to go into a situation like that until it’s been cleared, but it was your place and I couldn’t just stand by and do nothing.”

Tears welled in my eyes and Jack looked at the floor as if willing a hole to open up and suck him in. Thankfully, all the heavy was broken up by Hope’s cheerful voice as she entered the room.

“Good lord,” she said, weaving her way through all the men, taking care not to hit them in the faces with the bundle of giant balloons she carried. Her eyes flashed devilishly as she approached the bed. “You’ve been holding out on me, woman.” After a bone-crushing hug and ensuring that I was okay, she set the weighted balloons aside and offered her hand to Jack.

“Hi, I’m Abby’s friend, Hope. And you must be…”

“Jack,” he said, grinning. I couldn’t help noticing how the two were devouring each other with their eyes.

“Jack, Abby had told me so little about you, I feel like we hardly know each other.”

I laughed and settled in as the two introduced themselves as if no one else were in the room. Hope was bubbly and charming, and Jack was eating up every word. I could tell these two would be seeing more of each other.

After being discharged from the hospital, Hope and Jack promised to check in on Wilbur while one of the guys escorted me to Kennedy’s room where he lay unconscious well into the following evening. He had dark circles under his eyes, his arm was in a sling and stark white bandages wrapped around his waist. Still, he looked beautiful to me. I, on the other hand, was a greasy mess who was overdue for a shower. But when he finally came around, and those jewel-like eyes met mine, I couldn’t care less what I looked like.

“I thought you were dead,” I said on a choked whisper. Even though it took obvious effort, Kennedy lifted his arm and cupped the back of my head. “There was so much blood, and I thought he had killed you. I thought we were all going to die.”

“I never would have let that happen, sweet,” he said, his voice rough. “I had a plan.”

I smiled and leaned up to kiss him lightly. “I know you did.” Sitting back down, I held his hand in mine, studying the differences—his tough, dark skin versus my soft, pale skin. “All this time I was worried you’d die in a fire,” I confessed, taking Hope’s advice to let him inside my head. “I worried about it every time you walked out the door, and that’s probably never going to change. But I never once considered something like this. Seeing you lying there,
shot
, because of me…” I shook my head, no words coming out. 

Taking my chin between his thumb and forefinger, Kennedy raised my face up. “This isn’t your fault, sweet. You couldn’t have known that some psychopath wanna-be-bakery-owner was going to lose his mind and make you his target.”

“But it
is
my fault. I took his dreams away from him.”

“No, he did that all on his own. Abby, I talked to Findlay. He was the owner’s son. When he died, the building passed to his mother, and she’s the one who put it on the market. Findlay thought if he could fix it up, he could talk her into giving it to him, but she refused.”

“So he
was
the other bidder?” Kennedy nodded grimly and my shoulders sagged. Now that I had confirmation, it felt as though all the pieces I’d been given were finally falling into place. “So he was right, I ruined his life.” God, what kind of monster was I? My head dropped down, and I squeezed my eyes shut. How the hell could I hate someone whose life I’d destroyed?

“Abigail, that’s bullshit and you know it. You didn’t ruin anything. He took a risk and lost. Normal people pick themselves up and dust themselves off. They don’t try to kill people. So you’d better not let this guy stop you from living your dream.”

After throwing myself a brief pity party, I dried my eyes on my shirtsleeve and lifted my head. “You’re right. I know you’re right. It’s been a stressful forty-eight hours, but I won’t let this derail my plans.”

Taking my hand, Kennedy pulled me onto the bed and I stretched out beside him. “You’re really special to me, Abby,” he said into my hair. “I didn’t realize just how much until I saw you standing there with that gun pointed at you.”

“I know.” And I did, because while I knew I loved Kennedy well before now, I didn’t realize how much either until just that moment.

“Sometimes it takes almost losing someone to admit what’s happening in here.” With the hand already resting against his chest thanks to the sling holding his arm in place, he covered his heart. “Life isn’t promised to any of us, and I don’t want to live mine with regrets. Marry me, Abby. Let’s not waste another minute of the time we have left on this earth.”

Beneath my ear, Kennedy’s heart pounded violently. With mine echoing his, I tilted my head back and looked into his eyes. “I agree, let’s not waste another minute.”

THE END

Other Books Available by J.C. Valentine

Raine

Night Calls Series

Stranded

That First Kiss

Surrender to Love

Trust

Wayward Fighters Series

Knockout

Tapout

About the Author

J.C. Valentine

USA Today
Bestselling author J.C. Valentine is the alter-ego of Brandi Salazar, whose enjoyment of tales of romance spurred her to branch out and create her own.

She lives in the Northwest with her husband, their wild children, and far too many pets. As a university student, she studies literature, which goes well with her dream of becoming an editor. Brandi entertains a number of hobbies including reading and photography, but her first love is writing fiction-in all its forms. Connect with JC on Facebook!