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Nash didn’t. He was beyond relieved she and the baby were safe, but that didn’t mean this nightmare was over. “Hate to be the bearer of bad news, but does anyone else find it strange how easily Vicente’s men backed off? Almost as if they were—”

  “Leading you into a trap?” Vicente, dressed in a white linen suit with a yellow tie and matching pocket square, stepped out from around the back of the shabby building. “Bravo. I do love a worthy adversary.”

  Nash had been too intent on seeing Maisey to have noticed the tail-end of a black limo stretching out from behind the seedy, cement-block structure.

  “And Maisey . . .” He held out his arms. A diamond-drenched watch sparked in the blazing sun. “It seems like a lifetime since I last saw you. And now, you’ve gifted me with my son. How can I ever thank you?”

  “Let us go, Vicente. End the senseless killing. You didn’t need to kill Delia.”

  “Was that her name? I’ll start a scholarship program in her honor.”

  Nash clenched his teeth while Vicente fingered one of Maisey’s curls, then skimmed his fingertips over the crown of little Joe’s head. Nash would have lunged for the monster’s throat, but five men trailed their boss. All held their guns on Maisey.

  “She was a beauty, but nowhere near as lovely as you.”

  Maisey spit on him.

  He calmly took a white handkerchief from the chest pocket of his coat and wiped his cheek clean. “Interesting story—my wife makes these hankies for me by the dozens. She comes from a highly traditional family. Her mother made her father’s handkerchiefs and it means the world to her to continue that tradition in our marriage.”

  “You’re sick,” Maisey said. “How can you talk about your wife, knowing what you’ve done to me?”

  “Oh, darling, everything we did was with my wife’s approval. In fact, she helped me pick you, and even suggested ways to best woo you. Since she is not able to carry my child, she decided a surrogate was the next best thing. But now that our son is safely in the world, she’d prefer you exit . . .” He grasped her forearm, guiding her toward his car.

  “Slow down,” Nash grasped Maisey’s free arm. “She’s not going anywhere with you. Neither is her son.”

  “Gentlemen . . .” He nodded to his goon squad who had slowly circled. “Since we may have an audience, please dispose of them in a discreet manner.”

  Before Nash could even reach for his Glock, two meatheads with faces only a bulldog’s mom could love surged toward him, while another grabbed his wrists from behind.

  Jasper wasn’t faring much better.

  “Nash?” Maisey struggled against Vicente’s hold, but could only do so much while still holding her baby.

  “I’ve got this. Just don’t get into his car.” For an instant, Nash went limp in his attacker’s arms, then grabbed his wrist to position himself behind him, jerking back on his arm with enough force to hear a satisfying crunch of bone against tendon.

  Maisey screamed.

  Vicente stepped back to allow another of his men to cover her mouth, and yet another to manhandle her into the now running limo.

  Nash fought his way past his current attacker with a well-placed fist to his ugly face.

  “You good?” he shouted to Jasper.

  “Yeah! Go after your girl!”

  “Roger, that.” Nash reached the limo just as the driver pulled away. He lunged for the back door’s handle, but was too late.

  Not caring who saw—in fact, the more witnesses, the better, he took his Glock from his holster, spread his legs to give himself a more stable shot, then bam, bam, bam, blew out both rear tires.

  The vehicle fishtailed on the gravel lot, raising a dust cloud through which Nash could hardly see. When the dust settled, and the vehicle was still moving, he shot again, taking out the driver’s side front tire, as well.

  The thug behind the wheel was good, but not good enough to keep forward momentum on his side with three shredded tires and rims sinking into soft gravel.

  From inside the car came the sound of the baby crying.

  Behind Nash, a plaid-wearing good ol’ boy emerged from the store with a few hefty friends. “We don’t want trouble. Y’all best be on your way.”

  “That guy in the limo . . .” Nash never took his eyes from the rear window. “He’s got my wife and child.” Up until that very second, Nash had been determined to hold tight to Hope’s memory, but sadly, he realized that’s all she now was. That didn’t mean he loved her any less, but that Maisey and Joe needed—deserved—all of him, all the time. Not only the parts he felt emotionally equipped to handle. If they all made it through the next few minutes alive, they’d have the rest of their lives to figure out a happy ending—assuming this time when he proposed, Maisey accepted.

  “Wait a minute . . .” the store clerk said from behind him. “Are you the folks we’ve been seeing on the news? If so, don’t that mean there’s five million reasons for me to believe you do intend to do that little woman and her baby harm?”

  29

  “LET ME AND my baby go, Vicente. Please. It’s over. I’m sure police are on their way. You can’t win.”

  His leering smile made Maisey nauseous. “When are you going to learn, my pet, I always win.”

  “Come on out of there.” There was a rap on the window. “Give me my five million, and I’ll give you your man.”

  A satisfied groan spilled from Vicente’s lips. “I do so love this country. People will do anything for a quick buck.” He nodded to the grim-faced member of his security detail. “Off them all, then find a set of keys to match any vehicle. I’m excited to present our son to my wife. Ready the jet to leave within the hour.”

  “Vicente, no! Those men have done nothing to you. What if they have families?”

  He rolled his eyes before trailing his associate, and leaving her alone in the car.

  With each bullet’s pop, Maisey died inside, fearing one targeted Nash. She needed to go to him, but she also needed to keep her son safe. What should she do? Her limbs had turned cold and sluggish with fear. She couldn’t focus her eyes. Her gaze narrowed and her peripheral vision blurred. Terror lodged in the back of her throat, making it impossible to speak or scream or do anything other than grasp her wailing son.

  “I’m sorry,” she whispered, lurching with each new shot.

  There were masculine shouts and obscenities and more shots fired than she could count.

  Eyes closed, she wished herself anywhere but here—back to a time when she and Nash had been one. Why had she been foolish enough to throw him away?

  The trapped air grew stifling in the heat.

  With bullets flying, the last thing Maisey wanted to do was open the door, but unless she wanted her son or herself to pass from heatstroke, she needed to escape.

  Holding tight to Joe, she opened the door facing the two-lane road, breathing deeply of the somewhat cooler air.

  Cradling her son, she swung around to find Nash and Jasper both engaged in fist fights. She counted at least six dead men that the pair of SEALs must have eliminated. The men working the convenience store were gone, too, but their blood was on Vicente. Bile rose in the back of her throat. She struggled not to retch.

  Vicente tried running for the limo, but Nash gave chase.

  The two men exchanged more blows until Vicente drew a gun from a previously hidden chest holster.

  Nash kicked the gun from his hand.

  Nash and Vicente exchanged blow after blow. Nash’s nose bled, and one eye had nearly swollen shut. Still, he kept pounding her ex like a machine.

  Vicente got in a left hook, but then eventually sunk to his knees.

  Jasper finished off his man, and pulled his cell phone from a side pocket of his desert-camo cargo pants.

  “I so want to finish you here,” Nash said to Vicente from between gritted teeth.

  Maisey wanted the same, but not potentially at the risk of Nash’s freedom. He was hurt bad enough and needed rest. Even Vicente couldn’t escape what
he’d now done.

  “You don’t have the spine to do the job.” Barely upright, Vicente took a swing at Nash, but hit only air.

  “Funny . . .” Nash spit out a mouthful of blood. “But it seems to me you’re the one on the ground. Maybe you should try being a little nicer?”

  “Nash, leave him alone!” Maisey pleaded. “He’s like poking a snake. Let the police handle it from here.”

  “What I’ll be,” her ex said, “is the man who sends you to hell.”

  “Screw you.” Nash drew his gun, pointing the business end at Vicente’s head.

  “Cavalry’s on the way,” Jasper said. “Want me to zip-tie him all nice and pretty for the cops?”

  “Sure.” Nash used his forearm to wipe blood from his nose and chin. “Thanks.”

  “My pleasure.”

  Maisey wasn’t sure whether to run to Nash or wait for him to come to her. Had the danger finally passed? Was it safe to breathe?

  Poor little Joe hadn’t gotten the memo. He cried all the harder.

  “Shh . . .” She gave him a light jiggle. “Everything’s going to be okay.”

  “Perra!” Vicente shouted. “If my wife and I can’t have my son, no one will.”

  In fractions of a second, Maisey helplessly watched as Vicente leapt up to take Jasper’s gun. Before she could scream, he aimed it at Joe and fired, only her baby wasn’t hit.

  Nash had flung himself in front of her and Joe, and now, he shot Vicente in his chest before collapsing to the sun-bleached gravel in a pool of his own deep, red blood.

  Maisey cried out, running to Nash, who’d been shot.

  Jasper was back on his phone.

  Everything slowed. She tried getting to Nash, but her limbs felt as weak as if she were made of pudding. She was conscious that she was screaming, but couldn’t make out her own words.

  Why was this happening? Hadn’t what Vicente already put both of them through been enough? Why was she now having to face losing Nash for a second, agonizingly more permanent time?

  “Don’t you leave me,” she said on the heels of a sob. She’d crumpled alongside him, holding her son in the crook of her arm, pulling Nash’s head onto her lap, pressing Joe’s blanket to his chest wound, whispering words of love.

  He was eerily still. His breaths were shallow.

  “Nash, I love you. Please stay with me—however you want. If you can only be friends, that’s enough. But I don’t ever want to be separated from you again.”

  Jasper grasped Nash’s wrist, checking his pulse.

  “Strong. He’ll fight through.” Nash’s friend cupped his hand to her shoulder for a reassuring squeeze. “Plus, Harding’s got a medical helicopter already headed this way.”

  “Thank you,” Maisey said. “For everything. We wouldn’t have made it without you.”

  Jasper shrugged. “You’re welcome, but it was no biggie. All in a day’s work.”

  “Yeah, well, you’re both crazy.”

  “True . . .” Jasper grinned. “But at least we’re also damned good looking.”

  How he could joke at a time like this was beyond her, but she cast him a faint smile and nodded, but kept pressing the blanket to Nash’s wound.

  Ten feet away, Vicente’s corpse gazed at her with a blank stare.

  Maisey thought she’d be happy when he was finally gone, but seeing him dead brought no joy, only a strong sense of resolve to do something special with the rest of her life.

  30

  HOURS LATER, MAISEY woke from a light sleep to find Nash still resting comfortably in a Jacksonville hospital. He’d lost a lot of blood, but the bullet had miraculously missed vital organs and lodged itself in a rib. Doctors removed it, and he was expected to make a full recovery.

  Harding and Jasper were handling the mountain of police paperwork, leaving Nash free to heal.

  With the threat of danger behind them, Maisey had left Joe with her mom, so she could be with Nash when he woke. Her son had been so distraught by the gunfire that it had taken most of the afternoon to calm him. Her mom’s last report was that he’d finally succumbed to sleep.

  Aside from the oxygen’s faint gurgle, the room was tomb silent.

  Which made her nervous.

  She rose, standing at Nash’s bedside to make sure he was well and truly okay. His chest regularly rose and fell, and his eye was already looking better. In the heat of this war—and that’s what her ultimate escape from Vicente had been—she’d dreamed of spending the rest of her life with Nash. But now that the crisis had passed, she feared that dream could never be a reality.

  It still didn’t seem real—that Vicente was gone. That she and her son’s lives were now forever worry free. But she would worry—not about herself, but for this man who carried a burden so heavy he might never rest.

  She drew a chair to his bedside and lowered the rail. Sitting, she leaned forward, resting her cheek on the back of his hand.

  “How can I ever thank you for saving me?” She stroked the hair on his tanned forearm. “I don’t like thinking of myself as a damsel in distress, but you certainly played the role of my knight in shining armor. You always have, you know? Whether it was saving me from a playground bully or helping me cram for finals or fill out college scholarship applications, you were always there—until you weren’t. And I did that. I know. I ended us. As bad as that hurts, I know for both of our sakes that I need to let you go and move on. Our time together has been scary and exhausting and at times a bit of a rush, but you were doing a job, and I read far too much into your protector role. You weren’t—“

  “Geez . . . What’s a guy gotta do to get sleep around here?”

  “You’re awake?”

  “I’m talking, aren’t I?” He shifted his hand out from under her to cup her cheek. “You’re beautiful. Like, crazy, stupid take-my-breath-away gorgeous.”

  “Nash, I—”

  “Shh.” He planted his finger over her lips. “You had your say, but now it’s my turn to talk.”

  “You heard all of that and didn’t stop me?” Mortified didn’t begin to cover how that revelation made her feel. What she’d said had been private—meant for the version of him she’d forever carry in her private heart—not the real deal.

  “Ever think I might have a few secrets to spill?”

  Teary eyed, she shook her head.

  “When your psycho ex shot me, all I could do was pray I stayed alive long enough to tell you how much I love you.”

  “As a close friend?”

  “Do you have to keep interrupting?”

  “Sorry. Nervous habit.” She pretended to zip her lips, lock them, then toss the imaginary key.

  “Since odds are you have every intention of butting in again, I’m going to make this quick. There’s nothing friendly or brotherly about what I feel for you. It’s hot and achy and makes me want to drag you into this bed and do things that would skyrocket my pulse. Make no mistake, I genuinely loved Hope. She taught me to be a better, kinder, more patient man. What I didn’t understand before almost losing you was that loving you isn’t replacing her, it’s honoring her by opening my heart to its full capacity to let you back in. If you’ll have me, I can’t wait to be a husband to you and father to Joe. I want to kill spiders for you and mow the lawn and weed the garden. I want us to host holiday dinners for our moms and play board games and do puzzles on rainy days. I want the kind of life we talked about sharing back when we were kids and didn’t fully appreciate how precious that kind of normalcy would truly be. I want—”

  “How about what I want?” She hated to yet again interrupt, but this couldn’t wait.

  He scowled. “Are you turning down my proposal again?”

  “As if . . .” She stood, leaning over him to remove the oxygen tubes from his nose. “All of what you said sounds great, but I’m capable of killing my own spiders, and at the moment, what I want seems more urgent than a game of Scrabble.”

  “I don’t know . . . Scrabble can get pretty intense.�
��

  “Now, who’s talking too much?” She leaned closer and closer until his warm, familiar breath fanned her upper lip, making her tingle with the kinds of needs that would sadly have to wait until they were both off medical abstinence.

  Finally, finally, she touched her lips to his and happily groaned. Their kiss was everything she’d remembered and craved.

  At least until he pulled back. “Maisey?”

  “Yes?”

  “I just thought of a major problem.”

  She tensed. “If you’re about to tell me you changed your mind about us—”

  He kissed her quiet. “Relax. All I wanted to say is that at some point soon, we’re gonna have to make a return trip to the Everglades to fetch my truck.”

  Epilogue

  “HON, I’M TELLING you that Food Network chef said this is the best way to get our turkey extra juicy. He said if we don’t cook it on super low heat, starting ridiculously early in the morning, it will never be done in time for guests.” It was their first Thanksgiving as husband and wife, and Nash’s friends wouldn’t stop giving him grief about his new penchant for cooking. But then what did he care? In a few hours, they could all eat crow instead of his delicious bird. His meal would hands down be the best any of those bozos had ever tasted.

  Maisey yawned. “As far as I’m concerned, there’s only one thing delicious enough to wake me this early on a day off.” She’d taken a loan to buy her old shop from Delia’s parents, and sales had been great but her schedule hectic.

  “Oh yeah? What’s that?” He added a final sprig of fresh rosemary to his crowning Thanksgiving glory, then placed the lid on the new roasting pan and put the bird in the oven.

  “I think you know.” She hefted herself onto the granite counter of the newly-renovated three-bedroom ranch they’d bought on the same block as their two moms. At times, it was too close for comfort, but it sure came in handy when they needed a sitter. “All this food porn you’ve been making me watch has me hungry for something meatier than gravy.”