Blood in the Water (Kairos) (24 page)

“Oh.  Oh.  Oh God.  Ooohhhhh!”  Ashleigh’s eyes flew open at his words, but he robbed her of the ability to speak by shoving himself ever more powerfully into her receptive body.

Paul gritted his teeth so hard his jaw began to ache until, blessedly, he felt Ashleigh’s body start to spasm around his; then he let loose the fury of his release.  Their mutual climax was punctuated by their screams of pleasure.  The world was lost in flashes of white light for long moments until Ashleigh collapsed, spent, onto his chest.  Paul held her tight to him, unwilling to let her go.

Paul wasn’t convinced that he hadn’t blacked out for a moment there.  He thought maybe Ashleigh had, until she murmured into the muscles of his chest.  “I feel safer about Daddy bein’ so far from home knowin’ that you’re with him.” 

Paul didn’t respond.  He didn’t think he could without the immense guilt he felt shading everything he said.  He was the last person that Samuel should be safe with, or had been the last person.  Things were different now. He realized that Ashleigh had fallen asleep; her breathing was deep and rhythmical against his skin.

Dawn began to peek around the edges of the curtains.  Paul’s softening cock slipped free of Ashleigh’s body, and he experienced a sensation a little like grief as it did so.  He got up to deal swiftly with the condom and returned to the bed without delay.  He pulled Ashleigh back onto his chest, cradling her head in his palm, his fingers threaded into the liquid gold of her hair.  He simply needed to hold her as closely as possible.  He was haunted by the fear that he would wake up and she would be gone.  She didn’t stir as he positioned her comfortably over his body.

Mexicans or Rabid Dogs.  Whoever had made the effort to take Samuel out, it didn’t matter.  The only thing that mattered to Paul was whether Jimmy was going to try and undermine him.  Either way he’d watch his back like a motherfuckin’ hawk; but if Jimmy was trying to complete from a distance the mission he’d given Paul, then Paul was going to have to keep watch on two fronts if he was going to have a hope in hell of keeping Samuel whole.

Chapter Thirteen

Ashleigh couldn’t remember the last time she’d been this content and happy, despite the hangover that felt like it would never end.  She had woken on Monday morning literally wrapped in Paul’s body.  It had been possibly the best Monday morning in the history of the world.  Ever.  He’d evidently been completely exhausted after the mammoth journey he’d undertaken the day before and hadn’t so much as twitched when she’d left the bed.  Rather than take any chance of waking him from the rest he obviously so badly needed, she’d dressed, left him a note on the pillow and returned home to shower and change for work.  She’d been late, but she hadn’t cared; it had been more than worth it.

They’d exchanged texts during the day when she’d been able to get to her phone in between rounds, examinations and minor surgeries.  Something must have shown on her face or maybe in her distracted manner.  No one commented, but she caught Michelle trying to peer over her shoulder to see who she was texting more than once.  Michelle had made a few comments about how big the bikers in town were getting and whether there was something in the water.  A couple of staff members who’d attended the fundraiser to show their support and who had seen Paul agreed wholeheartedly, but they hadn’t known enough to link the pointed comments to Ashleigh.  Ashleigh had just laughed them off, and then while passing Michelle in the corridor muttered that the woman had no idea just how big those bikers really were.  She’d left Michelle standing stock still with eyes like saucers.  That image was still making her smile.

Paul had been waiting for her when she’d finished work.  He’d been sitting astride his bike in the parking lot of the clinic, looking every inch the biker pinup, but with clothes.  He’d taken her for something to eat and then they’d discovered that her bed just wasn’t built for someone that was as massive as he was.  There hadn’t been any club business to keep them apart for the past week, and there was a good chance that it would take wild horses to separate them now.  She hadn’t planned to get involved so intensely, but it had just sort of happened.  She wanted to see him, he wanted to see her, one thing inevitably led to another and they’d end up spending the night together, and now they were very definitely in a relationship. 

Ashleigh supposed that it would have happened anyway after Paul’s very public confirmation of his claim on her.  Even though that had taken place before they’d barely even started anything, they’d had the eyes of the club on them after that.  It was a little difficult to be cautious and take things slow when everyone already knew they were a couple.

And now, one week later, she and every other member or relation of the MC was battling through the aftereffects of the night before to pull their weight for another one of Moira’s pet projects.  If her mother even had a hangover she was keeping it locked down with an iron will and an oversized pair of Jackie-O-style shades as she directed this fundraiser for the town’s parks and green spaces. 

It was a fun day, with a percentage of the takings at each stall going towards the cause and donation buckets being rattled left, right and center.  It had taken over the largest park in the center of town and it damn near looked like the whole town had turned out.  It was sunny and hot, maybe a little too hot, but pretty much the perfect day for such an event.  If nothing else the stands selling cold drinks would make a killing. 

Moira had arranged fairground rides from somewhere to complement the usual suspects from town, most of which had been present at the fundraiser for the animal shelter.  The club was holding their usual barbeque grill, letting their inner cavemen out to play with the pretty fire.  If anyone had suggested that anyone other than the MC lay slabs of red meat over glowing coals, there probably would have been bloodshed.  Ashleigh, Michelle and another nurse, Rachel, had brought some of their prospective adoptees to form a kind of petting zoo.  It was a mercenary ploy to collect donations and maybe have the kids fall in love with a rabbit, kitten or puppy that they were cuddling, which would make it hard for the parents to say no.  Ashleigh wouldn’t release any of the animals to new homes that day, but they’d found before that when people saw the animals outside of their usual cages the adoption rate increased dramatically.

Ordinarily Ashleigh would have been tucked up in bed nice and early the night before an event like this to ensure maximum energy levels, but her father had suggested she attend the after-Church Friday night party.  He hadn’t mentioned it was because there was going to be an impromptu patch party.  Ashleigh was definitely a daddy’s girl at heart, and the club was in her blood even if she couldn’t wear a patch, but she’d been feeling the love a little extra deeply this week after finding out about her father’s near miss the previous weekend.  Her mother had told her to ask Paul about it, which was pretty much her daddy giving Paul the okay to talk about it.  Ashleigh didn’t know the details of the club’s business, but she did know that what they did wasn’t always legal, and with that territory came certain risks.  That didn’t make it any easier to hear about a direct attempt on her daddy’s life.  Having danger and mortality paraded in her face made her want to stick a little closer to the people that she loved and cared for.

Rachel was exhibiting a particularly fluffy rabbit to a family and Michelle was rattling the donation bucket at anyone who came within five yards of her.  Ashleigh was overseeing two children who were in the process of falling desperately in love with a couple of Cavalier Spaniel puppies which had been brought to the shelter as an unexpected litter.  They were all ears and eyes and excitable tail with just a scrap of dog in between it all.  The sound of motorcycle engines caused Ashleigh to look up towards the main street that bordered the park. 

Something about the bikes and their riders struck her as odd straightaway.  There were a few residents who preferred the Japanese and Italian crotch rockets; it wasn’t just that they weren’t Harleys.  It was a second or two before Ashleigh put the unfamiliar bikes together with the blacked out visors on the full face helmets as what had set off alarms in her head, almost at the same time as she saw the guns swinging up from their sides.

Gunshots thundered through the air like something out of a movie. Ashleigh spun and dived over the kids who’d been holding the puppies, knocking the screaming children and the yapping dogs to the ground beneath her as bullets strafed the air over their heads.  She couldn’t see anything but grass and couldn’t feel anything beyond wiggling limbs, furred and human.  She could hear the chaos, roaring engines, the continued crack of the gunshots, the shouts and the screams.

It seemed to be an endless number of heartbeats until the gunfire stopped.  When it ceased, the world seemed almost silent, even though the shouting and the screaming continued.  Yells and wails rang out, names and pleas for help, wild with frantic desperation.  More heartbeats passed before her body caught up with her brain and Ashleigh scrambled up.  She yanked the children that she’d flattened with her.  They were hysterical with fear, as were the puppies they were still clutching, but after patting them down she was certain that all they were was scared. 

She pried the puppies out of their clutching fingers and turned to drop them back in their pen.  That was when she saw that the bullets had caught one of the litter.  One of the tiny puppies, an inquisitive red and white bundle of fluff, had all but been torn in half.   Its littermates were mewling with terror and cowering in a corner.  The sight of the massacred, innocent being swimming in blood struck Ashleigh dumb and flooded her eyes with tears.  She barely even noticed that Michelle and Rachel were sobbing and hugging their own charges. 

It was a moment or two before the sound of her name being called penetrated the blanket of shock that was smothering her senses.  She stumbled around, but the first thing she saw were the children’s parents running towards her.  Each couple swept their offspring up, weeping with relief and love and hugging the tiny bodies until they cried more because they couldn’t breathe. 

She watched the scene, almost completely numb until two huge arms wrapped around her and lifted her against a solid wall of chest.  When Paul’s warm hand gripped her head so that he could see her and she saw the fear in his own expression, the shock dissipated and a sob tore from her throat.

“Are you okay, beauty?  Please, say somethin’.  Are you hurt?”

She choked on the emotions that were sticking in her throat, not least her own relief that he seemed to be unharmed.  “Yeah.  Yeah.  I’m fine.  You?” 

“Yeah.  I’m good.”  The worry in his eyes was washed away by relief.

She began to struggle in his arms, the fear returning and overwhelming her for all the other people she cared about.  “Daddy!  Mama!  Dean!  Have you seen them?  What about everyone else?”

“Shhh.  Shh.  Still, beauty.”  Paul soothed.  “Your family is fine.  They’re okay.  We need your help though, if you’re up to it.  Morse and Fletch were hit.”

Ashleigh shook herself, as much as she was able given that she was still caught tight in the iron bands of his arms. “Yeah.  I’m okay.  I’m okay.  I’ve no supplies though.”

Paul was already walking them through the shambling mass of dazed, confused and injured people.  “S’okay.  Ambulances will be on their way by now.”

Ashleigh’s heart stuttered in her chest when she got to the barbeque stand until her medical instincts kicked in.  Fletch had been shot in the leg.  She took a quick look, but the blood wasn’t pumping out, which discounted any major arteries being hit.  She instructed Sinatra to make a tourniquet from whatever he could find and to raise the leg.  Sinatra immediately started pulling his belt free from his jeans.

Her main concern was the blood loss combined with Fletch’s age, but that would have to wait, because Morse was bleeding out from a wound to his chest.  The young man was gasping and blood was bubbling up between his lips.  Terror was evident on his pale face.  Ashleigh was glad he couldn’t find the breath to speak; her taut nerves couldn’t withstand the question she knew he’d ask.

She spoke without looking for a target; she knew they were listening for her.  “I need a knife and someone pass me one of the plastic burger wrappers.”

Someone, she didn’t know who, pressed one of the pieces of cellophane that had held the raw patties into her outstretched hand.  Paul knelt beside her, his own blade in his palm.  She grabbed the knife and cut through Morse’s shirt, needing to see the wound.  Then she spread the plastic over the gory hole in his chest wall.  She could tell from the way his chest was misshapen that his lung had already collapsed, so she peeled a corner of the plastic away from the wound.  She could hear sirens approaching; she could only pray they’d arrive in time.

She looked directly at Paul, who was still crouched by her side, and said in a firm but low voice, “You need to snag one of those EMTs.  If he don’t get to hospital he’s not goin’ to make it.”

“Done.”  He uttered the single word and was gone.

“What about pressure on the exit wound?”  Sinatra asked from his spot in front of Fletch.  He had Fletch’s leg resting on his shoulder and was holding his belt wrapped tight around the old man’s thigh.

“Ideally, yeah I’d want to apply pressure.  But right now I think it’ll do more harm than good to move him.”  When she looked up she could see that Sinatra understood the gravity of the situation.  When she looked back at Morse he was paler still, and his eyes were rolling.

“Hey!”  She slapped his face.  “No!  You stay with us!”  His eyes flicked to hers, but she knew they were running out of time.

“EMT!  Comin’ through!”  Ashleigh could have wept when she heard the call behind her. 

She half turned, unwilling to take all her attention from holding the makeshift dressing in place over Morse’s chest.  Two EMTs were jogging towards her dragging a wheeled stretcher with them.  Paul was following. 

When they crouched down beside her, she explained the situation as she understood it succinctly and then got out of their way and let them do their job.  She knew they were worried by the speed that they lifted him onto the stretcher and rushed him towards the ambulance.  If they wanted to get him to the hospital before they stabilized him it was touch and go.

“I’ll go.”  Terry jogged after them.

It hit Ashleigh that she had hardly any idea who was standing around her and whether they were whole.  The numbness of shock was returning when she felt Paul’s arms surround her again.  She looked down and realized that there was more blood than there should have been on the grey beater she was wearing.  Her arms were red to the elbows with Morse’s blood, but there were smears higher on her chest.  She couldn’t make sense of it until she spotted the blood on Paul’s arm.