Falling for Her (27 page)

Sprinting toward the kitchen, he pressed against the wall and peered around the corner. His heart took a nosedive at the sight in front of him. Sugar was sprawled faceup on the floor, gasping for breath. Vanders stood over her, his shoe pressed down on her neck.

The only reason he’d finally agreed to allow Sugar to get the cop on tape admitting to murder was because she’d sworn the first thing Vanders did on arriving home was put his gun on his night table. But there was the unexpected problem of her father, who was still in uniform, thus still armed. That hadn’t been part of the plan.

As he’d listened to the conversation through his headset, it appeared the man was trying to help his daughter, but Jamie still didn’t trust him. He aimed the barrel of his Glock between Vanders’s eyes, ignoring the weapon aimed at him by the second cop.

“I assume you’re Jeb Conley, her father?” At the affirmative nod, he gave a grunt of disgust. “You should be ashamed of yourself for not protecting your daughter from this man. You can shoot me,” he said, then turned his gaze on Vanders, “but your chief will die first.”

Vanders pushed harder on Sugar’s throat and glared at her father. “Shoot the fucker,” he said.

Jamie kept his gaze focused on the man he wanted to kill more than anything, hoping the bastard would give him reason to. “Mr. Vanders, you have exactly two seconds to remove your foot. Less if your friend here tries something stupid.”

Vanders turned a murderous glare on Sugar’s father. “Pull the Goddamned trigger, Conley.”

Sugar, obviously still trying to inhale air, beat on Vanders’s legs.

“Time’s up,” Jamie said, lowering his gun and aiming it at Vander’s leg. As much as he longed to kill the man, he didn’t want Sugar to witness such a thing. But he had no problem putting a bullet through the wife-beating, murdering, sorry excuse of a man’s kneecap.

Suddenly, Conley swung his arm, pointing his gun at Vanders. The ear-splitting crack of a gunshot sounded a split second before a hole appeared between the police chief’s eyes.

“Jesus,” Jamie whispered as a line of dark red blood flowed down Vanders’s nose. The cop who’d forced a girl closer to childhood than adulthood to marry him crumpled to the floor as if in slow motion.

“He did tell me to pull the trigger,” Sugar’s father said, almost sounding as if he couldn’t believe what he’d just done.

Ignoring the distress in her father’s voice, Jamie rushed to Sugar. He slid his arm under her back and pulled her against his chest, hiding the sight of her husband, dead on the floor beside her.

“Are you all right?” Nothing. “Damnit, Sugar, talk to me.”

“You cursed.” Her chest heaved up as she took a deep breath. “Jamie, I’m so sorry.”

He’d never again be a man who cussed freely, but the damn woman just might be the only one he’d do it for. “Jesus, Sugar, why the hell are you sorry?”

Her eyes blinked up at him in confusion. “Stop saying bad words, Jamie. They just don’t sound right coming from you.” She crawled onto his lap, straddling his thighs. “I don’t know why I’m sorry,” she said, then lowered her mouth to his lips.

“Do you love her?” The gruff voice of her father penetrated Jamie’s brain.

Jamie wrapped his arms around Sugar, and with his hand at the back of her head, he pressed her face against the side of his neck. He then met the gaze of the man standing over him and nodded.

“You’ll take care of her?”

“Always.”

Conley nodded back as if satisfied, then walked toward the back door. Before leaving, he turned and looked at his daughter. “I’m sorry, Hannah, for everything.” He scrubbed a hand over his face, then opened the door and stared into the dark. “You know what they do to cops in prison. I can’t . . . I can’t go to prison,” he said without looking back at them. Then he disappeared into the night.

Sugar reached a hand out. “Daddy?”

Knowing he wouldn’t get far, Jamie didn’t go after him. The team had been listening in and by then would have taken to the air. They would find the man, and soon enough, Jeb Conley would be behind bars.

The crack of a gunshot sounded, startling both of them. It was stupid of him not to realize what Conley meant when he said he couldn’t go to prison, but Jamie had been so focused on Sugar that he hadn’t thought of anything past her.

She put her hands on his shoulders and tried to push away. Shocked eyes met his, then she twisted her head toward the back door. Jamie wrapped his arms around her waist to keep her in place, his heart breaking at the tears rolling down her face.

“Daddy!”

It was the very word he’d once screamed upon realizing he’d killed his father. “Oh, baby, I know. I know.” He gently rocked her, doing his best to absorb her pain even though he knew better than anyone it was an impossible endeavor.

“Daddy,” she whispered with her mouth pressed against his neck, her hot tears burning his skin. Because he could remember as if it were just yesterday how it felt to lose a father, he cried with her.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

S
ugar. Hold on to me, sweetheart. You can’t help him now.”

Jamie’s soft voice sounded a hundred miles away. Needing to find her father, she fought the dizziness and struggled to get away. “Please, Jamie . . .” Swallowing against the hurt in her throat from Rodney’s attempt to suffocate her, she tried again. “We have to find him. I-I have to see him. Please.”

With ease, he lifted from the floor with her still wrapped around him, keeping his hand on the back of her head so her face stayed pressed to his neck. It took a few seconds before she realized he was shielding her from seeing Rodney’s body. She didn’t give a damn about her husband—dead or alive—she just needed to see her father.

He walked them to the back door and then stopped. “Are you sure, sweetheart? Maybe it’s enough to know that in the end he did right by you.”

“What if he’s still alive?” When Jamie didn’t answer, she knew he believed her father was dead. The regret settling heavy in her heart surprised her. She’d thought she had banished any love for the man who had fathered her. A memory, long buried, surfaced. It had been the Christmas before her mother died. His present to his little family had been a trip to Disney World. In Hannah’s gift-wrapped box was a Mickey Mouse hat, and she’d worn it all day, loving the little ears. In her mom’s box was the receipt for their room at a Disney hotel. They would go during Hannah’s spring break. They’d been so happy then, the three of them.

They never went. Only weeks before the family vacation her mother had died, alone in the kitchen. Sugar still had the Mickey Mouse hat, tucked deep in a corner of her closet at her dad’s house. Unless he’d cleaned all her stuff out.

Even with her eyes squeezed shut, she couldn’t stop other images of those happy days from playing though her head like a movie reel. Nights around the dinner table, their shared laughter filling the air. Small Hannah bent over the table after it was cleared of the dishes, her father leaning over her shoulder, helping her with her homework.

Even years later, she could still recall his scent. English Leather had been his favored cologne, and she’d given him a bottle that Christmas, her last gift to him. Her mom had helped her pick it out. Although he’d acted surprised at the time, he’d probably not been surprised at all. He had smiled and told her it was his favorite gift of all. He’d still loved her then. A sob tore through her for Hannah, the little girl who’d lost everything she held dear.

The hand Jamie slid up and down her back in a gentle caress was warm and comforting, and she wished she could stay attached to him forever. But her father was out there in the dark, alone, and he needed her. She forced her legs to let go of Jamie’s waist, and when her feet reached the floor, she turned for the door. A wave of dizziness washed over her, and she swayed, her head pounding out a throbbing beat from hitting the tiled floor.

Before she could take a step, strong arms slipped under her knees, and Jamie lifted her. She wrapped her arms around his neck and rested her aching head on his shoulder as he carried her to the backyard.

“Wait, back up to the door.” Without questioning her, he stepped back, and she reached around the doorframe and flipped on the outside lights. At the edge of the patio surrounding the pool, he turned them in a full circle, but she didn’t see her father.

“Where is he? Oh God, we have to find him.” She tried to see past the rim of light. “Daddy?”

Halfway through another turn, Jamie stopped, then gently pressed her face back against his neck. A few seconds later, he placed her on a pool chair. “Don’t move, Sugar.”

Confused, she watched him remove his shoes, then two guns and a knife appeared from the pockets of his cargo pants. A neat little stack grew next to him: shoes, weapons, cell phone, wallet, then his shirt. It wasn’t until he dived into the pool that she understood.

“No, Daddy, no!”

Rearing up, she took a step, then crumbled into a heap as intense dizziness struck her. On her hands and knees—ignoring the scrape of the patio’s cement on her legs and hands—she crawled to the edge of the pool.

Jamie burst though the surface of the water, his arm wrapped around her father’s lifeless body. Giving her a sympathetic look, Jamie carried him up the pool’s steps and laid him on the patio.

“Nooo, Daddy, nooo. Please God, no.”

Why did her voice sound like ten-year-old Hannah’s? The memory of seeing paramedics bent over her mother’s body on the kitchen floor merged with the sight of Jamie trying to find a pulse on her father.

Suddenly the backyard was lit up and she felt like she was in a windstorm. She looked up at the night sky, then squeezed her eyes shut against the brilliant light shining down on her. The thump-thump sound she heard must be her heart breaking.

“Mommy?” she whispered, then her world turned to black.

Jamie had once prayed for the lives of the people he loved, but it hadn’t done any good. As he sat next to Sugar’s hospital bed, he held her hands, bowed his head, and begged God to please listen this time. He just wished she’d wake up.

“I got here as fast as I could. The Feds are going through his house, and before I left, they’d found all kinds of incriminating evidence. Not that it matters now. How is she?”

He glanced up at Kincaid, then turned a watchful eye back to Sugar. “She has a grade three concussion. Concerning in itself, but what has the doctors worried is it’s the second one she’s experienced in the last three years. There’s a record of her being brought to the emergency room by Vanders a little over two years ago. Must have happened shortly before she ran away.” And who was to say there hadn’t been other unreported times she’d been knocked around, hitting her head?

“Bastard,” the boss growled.

Even
bastard
was a too kind word for the man. “According to the hospital’s records, he claimed she hit her head diving into the pool, but that’s a damn lie. She couldn’t swim and wouldn’t have willingly dived into anything with water in it.”

Kincaid squeezed his shoulder before pulling over a second chair. “Did she back up his story?”

“There’s nothing in the records that she said anything. I’m guessing she was too afraid to dispute him.” Restless, he stood and leaned over her, caressing her cheek. “Sugar, sweetheart, wake up.”

Nothing.

If she never woke up, he was going to dig up Vanders’s body after he was buried and tear him apart, limb by limb. Jamie hissed out a frustrated breath. Why hadn’t he told her he loved her? If he had, then maybe she’d have something to live for. Why had he thought it would be better if he waited until all the mess with her husband was over? Even thinking of the man as her husband turned his stomach sour. What had she lived through married to the bastard of all bastards, with no one to turn to for help?

If she awoke, he’d stop cursing again.
Did you hear that, God?
But looking at her pale face, wondering if he’d ever be able to hold her in his arms again, if he’d ever hear her throaty laugh again, he needed the curse words.

“Why don’t you take a break, Saint? I got a couple of hotel rooms for us. Go take a shower, get a few minutes’ rest. I’ll stay with her.”

He turned an incredulous stare at Kincaid. No way was he leaving Sugar. Not an option. What if she woke up and he wasn’t here? “So you’d leave Dani to go get rest when she needed you?”

The boss glanced from the woman lying lifeless in the bed to him. “No. I’ll go get you a cup of coffee and something to eat.”

“Thanks.”

Jamie leaned forward in his chair, keeping Sugar’s hand in his.

“I can’t do this again, sweetheart. I just can’t. You have to wake up.” Somehow he’d managed to go on living after killing his parents, but if Sugar died, too, he wouldn’t be able to bear it.

Hot tears trailed down his cheeks, but he didn’t care. Nothing mattered but seeing her smile at him again with mischief in the blue eyes that sometimes turned violet.