“Is that a light in Fiona’s bedroom window?” Shade Gruber asked. “I’m not sure what room is hers other than it’s on the second floor.”

Chase looked up from dialing Fiona’s phone and saw light filtering from Fi’s bedroom curtains. “I’m going in. You coming?”

“I’m coming. Let me get my gun. Wait for me.”

Chase wasn’t waiting for anyone. He charged across the street to the front porch. The door was locked, to no surprise. Fiona took her security seriously. There was no sense in trying to break through a solid oak door. Chase shoved his house key in the lock and flung the door open.

“Fiona!” he yelled as he rushed in.

Two figures were struggling at the top of the staircase. He watched in horror as Fiona was shoved backwards and rolled down the wooden steps, stopping only when her head hit the floor with a sickening thud.

“Fiona,” he shouted and rushed to her side.

She was breathing, thank God.

“You bitch,” he yelled up the stairs.

Lori Wood stood grinning down the stairs. “Lori’s gone. I’m Robert.”

Lori/Robert lifted his gun and pointed it at Chase and Fiona. Chase threw his body over Fiona’s to protect her from the bullet.

The reverberations from a gunshot echoed in the house. A female scream followed the shot and then a slap of a body hitting the wood sounded above him.

Chase looked up and found Shade Gruber with a Glock extended, Gruber’s gaze directed over Chase’s head. He turned in that direction and saw Lori Wood sprawled on the wooden stairs, her blood forming a pool beneath her and dripping down to the next step.

“Shit,” Chase said. “We need an ambulance for Fiona. Is Lori still breathing?”

Keeping his gun at the ready, Gruber climbed the steps and bent to feel for a pulse. “Damn, I’m good,” he said. “She’s alive.”

“For now, unless I get to her,” Chase ground out.

A phone call from the chief of police had a tendency to get special attention. Two ambulances rolled up to the house within minutes. Neither woman regained consciousness while being stabilized and transported to the hospital.

***

Two Hours Later

Chase sat in the surgery waiting room with Vivi Gruber, Shade’s wife. Shade was still on the scene with the investigating officers.

In all his life, Chase had never felt as helpless, even after the bomb in Afghanistan. At least then, he’d been fighting the pain, which gave him foe to battle. Now, all he could do was sit, and pray, and –God help him—shake.

“God damn it,” he growled. “How much fucking longer?”

Vivi put her hand on his arm. “She’d got the best surgeon in Texas working on her. They’re doing everything they can.”

“I know,” he said, running his hands through his hair. “I need to do something.”

“You did,” she said. “You saved Fi’s life”

“I was almost too late,” he said, pounding his fist on the arm of the sofa. “Too fucking late.”

“But you weren’t too late. If you hadn’t been there, that crazy woman would have shot her for sure.” She squeezed his arm. “Shade told me how you put your body over hers to shield her from being shot. That was very brave.”

“I can’t lose her. I just can’t.” His gaze dropped to the floor.

He couldn’t live without her. He’d never told her that.

He’d never gotten a chance to tell her that he was in love with her. What if he never did? What if she died without ever knowing?

The waiting room door opened. He looked up, expecting the nurse again with an update from surgery. Instead, Hank and Sadie Patterson rushed in. He stood.

“Oh my God, Chase,” Sadie said, throwing her arms around his neck. “Thank goodness you were there. Fi could have been killed.”

With Hank’s wife still wrapped around him, Chase shook hands with Hank. “Hey,” he said.

“Hey, yourself,” Hank replied, his expression grim.

Sadie finally released him, but kept an arm around his waist. “Thank you. A million times thank you for saving my friend.”

Chase looked at Hank. “‘Easy job’ you said. ‘It’ll be like a vacation,’ you said.”

Hank shrugged. “I guess I’ll have to add audio engineering bodyguard to our list of services.”

Chase chuckled for the first time in hours.

“Fill us in,” Hank said, gesturing toward the empty seats.

Chase introduced them to Vivi Gruber and then started at the beginning.

Another two hours passed. Shade joined them with the news that Lori Wood, nee Havens, had died without gaining consciousness. His department had discovered she’d been hospitalized for years for her mental instability. Her brother, Bobby, had died that day. He’d been quite a bit younger than she and, due to her mother’s ongoing mental depression, Lori had been his primary caregiver.

But as far as what happened tonight, they’d have to wait to hear the details from Fiona.

The waiting room doors opened, and a woman wearing a set of sweat-drenched scrubs entered.

“You all here for Fiona Samuels?”

Chase jumped to his feet. “That’s right. Is she okay?”

The doctor smiled. “The surgery went well. As the x-rays showed, the fall twisted her neck and spine. But I’d been worried there might be a fracture we weren’t seeing. I found some old damage, probably from her accident years ago, and I repaired that. We can repair the body in ways today that simply weren’t available twenty years ago. I know she’s suffered from headaches since the accident. There was a dislocated bone applying pressure on a nerve and almost totally shutting off blood supply in an artery. Relieving that should help those.”

“Where is she, doc?” Chase asked. “Can I see her?”

“She’s in recovery. We should have her in a room in about an hour. We don’t usually let people back into our surgery recovery area, but seeing as you threw yourself over her to protect her, I think you deserve some special attention.”

Chase felt the heat flush his cheeks.

The attractive female surgeon leaned toward him. “I know everything,” she said with a smile. “My husband’s a detective on the police force.” She straightened. “If you’ll come with me.”

“Vivi and I are headed home,” Shade said. “I’ll touch base later today.”

Vivi kissed Chase’s cheek. “Thank you.”

After they left, Hank and Sadie left, saying they were going to hang around for a few days until they could talk with Fiona, so they were headed to find a hotel.

The doctor led Chase down a cold, sterile-looking hallway. His heart dropped when he saw the woman he loved lying in the bed. A white bandage covered the left side of her head. The heart monitor on the shelf above her beeped out a steady sound. Four IV bags hung from poles delivered fluid into the needle in her arm.

He grabbed the back of the chair next to her bed to steady himself.

“It looks worse than it is,” the doctor said. “She’s doing great.” She nudged him into the chair. “Sit.”

“Can I touch her? Hold her hand?”

“Of course.”

He took the hand of the arm without the IVs. Fiona’s skin was dry and soft and warm. He lifted her hand to his face, pressing her knuckles to his cheek and then to his mouth.

“I love you, Fiona,” he said. “I should have told you before now. I love you.”

Fiona continued to sleep.

The recovery nurse kept coming in and talking to Fi. “Wake up, Fiona. There’s a good-looking man sitting here beside you wanting you to wake up and talk to him. Come on, honey. Wake up.”

Fiona groaned. That was the best sound Chase had ever heard.

“What?” she said in a thick voice. “Where am I?”

“You’re in the recovery room,” the nurse said. “Your surgery went great. You’ll be back on your feet in no time. You have to wake up before we can let you go to a hospital room.”

“What happened? Chase?”

“I’m here, love,” Chase said. “I’m right here.” He pulled her hand to his mouth again. “You scared me so bad. I thought I’d lost you after I’ve looked for you for my whole life. I love you, Fi.”

Her eyelids fluttered. “You love me?”

“I do.”

“See, honey?” the nurse said in a loud voice. “He loves you. You have to wake up. Open your eyes.”

Fiona’s eyelids slid open to a crack. “I can’t see.”

“It’s okay, babe,” Chase said. “I can see enough for both of us.”

“No,” she groaned. “It’s too bright. The lights are hurting my eyes.”

Chases looked up at the nurse. “She’s been blind for twenty years. The lights shouldn’t be bothering her eyes.”

“Fiona. Open your eyes for me,” the nurse ordered.

Fiona opened her eyes and squinted. Then she began to cry. “You have blonde hair,” she said. “I can see you. Where’s Chase?”

Chase saw his future crumble. If she regained her vision from something the doctor had done in surgery, she’d hate his scars. She could never love him looking as he did.

She rolled her head toward him. “You’re beautiful,” she said. “You are so much more handsome than I’d pictured in my head.” The hand he was holding cupped his face. “I love you, Chase.”

 

Four Weeks Later

“I’m not promising anything,” Chase said. “I’m not the cook Fi is.”

Fiona bumped his hip. “Don’t listen to him,” she said to Shade and Vivi. “He’s a great cook.”

“Don’t worry, Chase. Shade will eat anything. Trust me. I couldn’t boil water when we married and he never complained.”

“That’s the way it is, darlin’, when a man’s in love.” Shade put his arm around his wife and hugged her.

Chase carried a platter of steaks to the table. “I think we’re ready.” After he set the plate on the table, he pulled out Fiona’s chair.

Shade did the same for his wife, who laughed. “You haven’t pulled out my chair in years.”

“Yeah, well, maybe Chase’s is a good influence on me.”

“Thank you, Chase,” Vivi said with a grin.

Once they were all seated and food was ladled onto plates, Vivi said, “Fiona. I don’t understand about your vision. Shade explained it, but I didn’t understand.”

Fiona’s gaze met Viv’s. “Dr. Mason isn’t sure, but she thinks the blood flow to my eyes was hindered by the compression from a dislodged bone from that wreck twenty years ago. There was enough blood trickling through so that the nerve and tissues weren’t destroyed, but not enough to allow me to see. Once she released that pressure and normal blood flow was restored, I got some vision back. It’ll never be completely normal, but I’ll take it. I can see well enough to read, cook…” She looked toward Chase. “See the man I love.”

“She was perfect when I met her.” Chase took her hand and kissed her knuckles. “Any news on the Haven family story?”

Fiona had spent hours with Shade going over her time with Lori, especially that night. Even though the police departmental psychiatrist had never met Lori before her death, he’d hypothesized that she was so traumatized by her brother’s death, that she’d allowed him to live on in her head until he became as real to her as herself.

Shade took a drink of his wine and said, “Looks like if Lori didn’t directly give her mother the pills that killed her, she probably helped. The police department in St. Louis had always felt Mrs. Haven’s death didn’t fit the typical suicide pattern. As far as Mr. Haven’s death, they’ll never know for sure if Lori was directly responsible.”

“She said she was,” Fiona said.

Shade shrugged. “I know, but she’s dead, so the department is not reopening the case.”

“And her story about her grandparents?” Chase asked.

“They were terrified of Lori. They knew she wasn’t right. They did want they could, got her institutionalized for her mental illness, and she was there until about three years ago. They refused to let her live with them and she disappeared. Obviously, she moved back to Big Branch. They were embarrassed when they confessed they were relieved when she left and didn’t look for her. They’re older, well into their seventies. They feared for their lives if she moved back in with them.”

“Don’t blame them,” Fiona said. “That girl was nuts.”

“Psychiatrist said Lori was very conflicted mentally. She really was trying to keep Bobby from hurting you, but that side of her was getting stronger every day, until she could no longer control it.” Shade looked at Chase. “You were probably the motivation for Bobby to get stronger.”

“Fuck,” Chase said. “I know that. I’d regret coming and setting off this whole situation, but I can’t, not when I found my future wife.”

“Yeah,” Vivi said. “How come you’re not flashing that big diamond ring in my face?”

“Oh. My bad.” Fiona shoved her hand under Vivi’s nose. “Dig this.”

“Wait just a darn minute,” Vivi said, giving Shade a mock frown. “That diamond is bigger than the one I got for bearing your children, Shade.”

“Thanks, man,” Shade said to Chase

Chase just shrugged. “What can I say? I want the world to know that Fiona Samuels is mine.”

Fiona walked over to her future husband and put her arms around his neck. “I love you, Chase. There is no diamond big enough to adequately display that.”

He pulled her into his lap. “I love you too, Fiona.”

He kissed her while Vivi cooed her delight.

“I think I’m going to like our new neighbor,” Vivi said to her husband.

“Me, too,” Fiona said from Chase’s lap. “Me, too.”