Abby

 

I was sitting in the same chair since they let me in to see him. He was in surgery for a while, which was heart stopping for me. I had been sure that as he lay in my arms after James’s attack that he was dead. There had been so much blood.

 

“Kade!” I screamed at him, shaking his limp body. He was bleeding profusely from the shoulder, the dark liquid seeping into his already soaking wet shirt through the hand that had been trying vainly to slow the tide. “Kade!”

 

But he wasn’t answering. His eyes were open and I was positive that he was dead, that he was staring off into oblivion, his soul having already left his body. But then he blinked.

 

“Oh, thank god!” I cried, leaning forward and trailing my blood tinted hands across his cheeks and his lips, not caring what a mess the two of us were.

 

I looked worse for wear. My hair was damp from the rain outside, though it was trying to dry, and my bra was clearly visible thanks to my torn shirt. James had ripped it off of me, tearing like a wild man until he got to the flesh beneath. He’d held me down on the bed in there and was working on getting my clothes off. It was so reminiscent of that night in the alley that I was almost too panicked to do anything.

 

But I wasn’t drunk this time. I was sober and I was wired with adrenaline. I fought him off with everything I had, the struggle paying off as Kade broke through the door to my rescue before James could do much more than tear at my clothes.

 

We should have both escaped then and there, but he was determined to save me. Not just tonight, but forever. And he proved it when James pointed a gun at me, pulling the trigger with the barrel aimed at my forehead. He had been prepared to kill me if he couldn’t have me, and I thought that with the arrival of Kade, he had discovered just that.

 

He couldn’t have me.

 

But it wasn’t in the cards for me to die tonight. Kade appeared out of nowhere from one of the back rooms. He raced into the foyer where I was pressed against a wall with nowhere to go and he threw himself between me and the gun.

 

And now he lay bleeding in my arms, just barely conscious, bleeding so fiercely that he was pale, that he was surely dying.

 

Behind me, I registered that James had recovered from his shock of actually shooting someone, but I didn’t even turn to look at him. I clung to Kade desperately, trying to wake him up, to get him to move. I had to get him out of there, to the hospital where they might still be able to save him.

 

When the gun went off the second time, I was sure I was dead. But then there was a heavy thump on the floor behind me and I tore my eyes away from Kade long enough to see that James was lying dead on the floor. I let out a sob as I saw my uncle standing in the doorway with a gun still smoking.

 

“Caleb!” I cried, relieved that help had finally come. “Oh god, Caleb! He’s hurt! Kade’s been shot. Oh please, we have to help him! Oh god, please!”

 

Caleb hurried over to me, taking in the whole scene with one sweep of his eyes. His expression was grim, but he told me, “He’ll be alright. You’ve got your car?”

 

I nodded.

 

“Good, we’ll put him in there and drive him to the hospital. We don’t have time to explain all this to the cops right now.”

 

I agreed and grabbed my keys from the table—they were the reason I’d come back in the first place—and hurried out the door with Caleb trailing behind me. He was carrying Kade across his shoulders, an impressive feat given that Kade was not a small man. But then, neither was Caleb.

 

“He’ll be alright, Abby,” Caleb reassured me as he shoved the other man into the backseat. “Let’s get going.”

 

I drove him to the hospital.

 

They worked on him for a long time. Hours. It had me worried sick and when the lady tried to block me further by saying that only family was allowed to visit him after the surgery, I nearly lost my mind. I almost blew up—which wouldn’t have really helped my cause—but then Caleb stepped up.

 

“We are family,” he said firmly. “He’s my nephew.”

 

My eyes widened at this proclamation, but I didn’t question it. In fact, I was too desperate to see Kade to care about what excuse he provided to get me in there or the true meaning behind it.

 

All I cared about was seeing Kade.

 

Now I was sitting beside him as he slept off whatever painkillers they’d given him for the surgery. I would wait patiently until he woke up, unwilling to leave his side. Caleb came in and out, bringing in coffee when he could find it.

 

At this moment, however, he was gone—stretching his legs—and the coffee he’d brought me last was lukewarm. I was saved from having to drink it by the opening of the door and the smell of fresh, real coffee.

 

“Hey, how you holding up?”

 

I looked up at April, offering the tiniest of smiles as I accepted one of the coffees in her hand. It was fresh brewed from an all-night place. “Thanks,” I mumbled.

 

She took a seat beside me, wrapping her hand around mine. She squeezed. “He’ll be fine.”

 

I nodded.

 

April had been safe the entire time and maybe if I’d known that, none of this would have happened and Kade never would have gotten shot. Her phone had been dead when I’d called it, she told me, and she hadn’t made it home yet. In fact, she’d stopped to see her mother who was in town for once and considered staying with her. One hour with the overbearing woman and April had reconsidered, but it certainly explained my inability to reach her. She told me that she’d texted me—and then called several times after—to get a hold of me as soon as she discovered what had happened, but by then I was already at James’s rinky-dink little house.

 

I tried to shove the memory of it away.

 

We sipped coffee and waited for a while, but eventually I told April to go home. She did and I was surprised to see Brody escort her out, promising that he’d keep an eye on her to make sure she was safe. Under normal circumstances I might have wondered if there was something happening there, but just then I couldn’t focus on anything but Kade.

 

He’ll wake up soon, I told myself, and it was true.

 

I had to wait another hour, but finally, he stirred. He made a groaning, grunting noise, then his eyelids flickered. I held my breath until his eyes fully opened.

 

“Where am I?” were the first words out of his mouth, followed close by a surprised, “Abby?” when he caught sight of me.

 

I smiled at him, relief bringing me to the verge of tears. “Oh, Kade, thank god! I was so worried!” Then I threw myself at him, hugging him with everything that I was worth.

 

He winced, and I started to pull back, but he held me against him all the same.

 

When he finally let me go, his hand clutching mine to make sure I didn’t disappear on him, he asked me, “What happened?”

 

I shook my head and took a deep breath, recounting the events. His insistence that I get out of there, my refusal to leave without him, and James searching for me while Kade was in the house. Most of them he seemed to remember, but it got a little fuzzy after the gunshot. “If Caleb hadn’t gotten there…” I shook my head, offering him a half smile. “Well, we’d probably both be dead.”

 

At that, he sat up suddenly, grabbing me by the shoulders despite his injured shoulder. “Damnit, Abby! You could have been killed! Next time, you leave me, damnit. You leave me!”

 

I stared at him, my chest tight at the emotion shining in his eyes, clear in his expression. I had realized as soon as he took that bullet for me, no, even before that, when he came into that room and pulled James off of me, that the things he’d told me before were lies. I didn’t have all the details, but the guilt on Uncle Caleb’s face spoke volumes.

 

I had the feeling that it was never Kade’s choice to begin with to break up with me and the only reason I wasn’t strangling Caleb’s neck just then was because he’d saved our lives in the end.

 

“You should know that I can’t do that,” I whispered in answer to Kade. “I can’t leave you when something awful like that happens. Not even if my life’s in danger.”

 

He looked pissed and fully ready to argue. Probably to tell me what an idiot I was, but I wasn’t going to let him. I placed a single finger on his lips, stalling his next argument, and leaned forward. When my mouth was poised just above his, I smiled sweetly at him.

 

“No, never,” I whispered, then closed that final distance between our lips. I pressed mine to his fiercely, lingering even when it was probably a good idea to pull away. It felt like we hadn’t kissed in forever.

 

When I pulled away, he looked just as affected as I was. He swallowed and whispered, “Abby,” pain in his voice. But the pain didn’t seem to be coming from his shoulder or his bruised jaw. It was an inside kind of pain, the sort of thing that wounded the heart, not the body.

 

He looked ready to tell me something awful, maybe break up with me a second time, and I wasn’t ready to hear it. I wouldn’t accept it this time.

 

“No,” I told him sternly. “Not this time. I’m not letting you go, no matter what you say. I love you, Kade Johnson, and I won’t ever let you go. You’ve saved my life, in more ways than you can possibly imagine.”

 

He sucked in a breath and looked like I’d just given him a precious gift. He reached for me, pulled me closer to him, until I was leaning my forehead against his. “Abby Woodard, you’re the bossiest, stubbornest pain-in-the-ass woman I’ve ever met. And I’m so in love with you that it hurts sometimes. And, baby, I know I don’t deserve you.”

 

I kissed him before he could say more, wondering how in the world he could possibly think he didn’t deserve me. When we broke the kiss, both breathing heavily, I said to him, “You don’t know anything. I belong with you, and anyone who can’t see that is crazy.”

 

***

 

Kade had to stay in the hospital for a week, much to his dismay. But I made it a more enjoyable experience by spending most of every day there with him. I would cuddle with him on the bed he was mostly stuck in and tell him about what was going on, keeping him updated.

 

Caleb and I had discussed the police in length after James’s death. Ultimately, we decided that we had to call them. It would look really bad if we didn’t call them and they found the body. Which, eventually they would. They’d realize he’d been shot and then it would only be a matter of time before Caleb was put on the chopping block.

 

He had money now, as did I, but there wasn’t enough money in the world at this point to get him off the hook for murder.

 

Probably.

 

Instead, we called the police and told them that I had killed him in self-defense. That he’d kidnapped me and had been stalking me. Thankfully I had plenty of evidence to support my claim and now that he was dead, April was happy to help corroborate my story.

 

“Glad that’s all tidied up,” Kade commented. He was slipping on the fresh clothes that I’d brought him, relieved to be finally getting out of the hospital. I couldn’t blame him and looked forward to spending some quality time nursing him back to health. Or dressing up like a nurse, either way. “Did you tell them about me?”

 

I nodded. “Yes. I told them that you were my bodyguard and that you’d gotten shot protecting me which was why I had to pull the trigger. It explained your blood and why you didn’t shoot him. Fewer questions that way.”

 

He agreed. There was a comfortable silence between us as he finished getting dressed. When he came out of the bathroom looking gorgeous, clean, and dressed in jeans that made me want to do naughty things to him, he smiled at me.

 

“You ready to get out of here?”

 

“Am I ever,” I said agreeably.

 

We were headed out the door when it opened before we could open it. I was surprised to find Uncle Caleb standing in the doorway. He cleared his throat.

 

“I wanted to talk to you for a minute before you take off.”

 

I felt Kade tense beside me and sensed that there was something going on here. Worry flooded me as I wondered if this was something that was going to turn out badly. Surely Caleb has nothing against Kade! He saved my life!

 

But before I could step between them or tell Caleb off for the bad thoughts I wasn’t sure he was having, Caleb spoke again.

 

“I wanted to commend you for your bravery,” he said seriously, like a military leader praising his troops. “What you did for Abby…” He shook his head, offering a half smile. “I don’t know of anyone who would have done that for her.”

 

“You, sir,” Kade pointed out.

 

Caleb laughed at that, a sound I always loved to hear. “Fair point. And here’s mine: I was wrong to try to keep you two apart.”

 

Anger surged through me swiftly and mercilessly. So it had been Caleb’s doing! I wanted to yell at him, but Caleb continued before I got the chance, though I was seriously thinking about interrupting him. In the end, I was glad that I didn’t.

 

“I told you that you were beneath her, that Abby deserved better, and in a way I stand by that.” He held up his hand when it looked like I was about to chew his ass for being a jerk. “Because there is no one in this world who will ever be good enough for my niece. But you’re the only man who has ever come close.”

 

He offered his hand to Kade, who shook it firmly.

 

“It would be my honor to have you date my niece. There’s no one I would trust more with her.”

 

Kade seemed to lighten at that and he turned me in his arms. Eyes burning with passion and something else, he leaned down and pressed a searing kiss to my lips. When we broke, I felt dazed, my whole body buzzing with electricity. “I love you, Abby Woodard, and I will do anything to hold on to you.”

 

THE END

 

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