Читать книгу Hazardous Holiday - Liz Johnson - Страница 13

THREE

Kristi rolled out of bed the next morning more exhausted than she’d been the night before. And no closer to coming up with a plausible reason why Zach shouldn’t—couldn’t—go to her office Christmas party. Nerves over the party mixed with fears over Jackson Cole, culminating in half-waking dreams where he appeared at the event. He’d screamed and pointed right at her in a way that was far too familiar for comfort, sending shivers racing down her spine.

She’d much rather stay under her warm blanket and pretend none of this was happening.

But the pitter-patter of little feet down the stairs reminded her that she had to get out of bed. Cody had a doctor’s appointment that afternoon that he couldn’t miss. No matter how much she wanted to hunker down inside and ride out whatever storm was coming for her.

The loud footfalls that followed the soft ones reminded her she didn’t have to face it alone.

Somehow that was enough to get her out of bed and stumbling toward the kitchen. Pulling on her ratty robe, she nearly tripped over an uneven arm of the belt before catching herself on the wall with a loud thud.

“Everything okay up there?” Zach’s voice was gravelly. Cody’s sweet laughter quickly followed.

Grumbling, she straightened the belt and stomped down the stairs. When she reached the kitchen and the boys caught sight of her, Zach stopped his spoon halfway to his mouth, suspending an enormous bite of cereal and milk over his bowl. His eyebrows were at full mast, his mouth hanging open uselessly as he leaned against the counter beside Cody’s stool.

“What?”

Cody giggled.

She swung her gaze on him, frown in place and eyes narrowed. “What’s so funny?”

“It’s—”

Zach dropped his soup spoon back into his bowl with a splash. “Nothing. Nothing is funny.”

She caught her reflection in the stainless steel toaster on the counter. Her hair was a wild mass on top of her head, her curls stretching in every direction and dancing with every movement. She clamped her hands over her hair and tried to tame it.

It didn’t help.

Neither did Zach’s smirk as he picked his spoon back up and took a bite of his sugary breakfast.

She shot a glance in Cody’s direction. He had a piece of whole wheat toast slathered in jelly sitting on a plate and a bowl in front of him. “Did you give him cereal? He can’t have that much processed sugar.”

“Relax, Momma.”

She frowned at Cody’s too-cool tone. Where’d he pick that up?

Cody tipped the bowl toward her. “Zach peeled me an orange.”

“Oh.” As comebacks went, it wasn’t her best. But she didn’t have anything else to say. Except maybe that she’d overreacted. Maybe she was a little too on edge lately. Maybe sharing her house with a man again wasn’t helping.

“I get it,” Zach assured her. “He has to eat lots of fruits and veggies and lean proteins. And not a lot of all the other stuff.”

She nodded slowly but couldn’t help eyeing the brightly colored loops in his bowl.

He didn’t seem to need a translator for her expression. “I know I have to eat the good stuff, too—and I usually do. But after a year without it, sometimes a man just needs his cereal.”

“Yeah, Mom. Sometimes a man needs cereal.”

That made her laugh out loud, and even Zach’s eyes crinkled at the corners. Holding out his hand, he gave Cody a high five, which made Cody beam. It was clear her son had missed having a man around the house. It squeezed at her chest in a strange way, an odd reminder of grief and pride. She’d managed to keep going, to keep her family moving forward.

“So, I was thinking,” Zach continued. “Christmas is only about three weeks away. And the living room is kind of bare. Maybe we should go pick out a tree this afternoon.”

“We never get a live Christmas tree.” Cody’s tone pleaded with her.

“We used to. When you were younger. Before.”

Zach met her gaze, and again he seemed to understand without more explanation. Aaron had handled the trees, until he hadn’t. That first year after his death, she’d barely managed to get a three-foot tree up on an end table. But she’d done it for Cody. The next year she’d gotten a prelit tree from a box.

It wasn’t the same.

She knew it. But it was the best she could do on her own.

But Zach had a way of reminding her that she wasn’t on her own anymore.

“Anyway, we can’t go today. You have a doctor’s appointment this afternoon.”

Cody immediately looked at Zach. “Want to go with us?”

“No, buddy.” Kristi jumped in to save Zach from having to decline. He was just back from a year away. Certainly there were people he wanted to see and things he wanted to do. They couldn’t assume his time was theirs. “I’m sure Zach has other plans today.”

He slurped the last of his milk from his bowl and smacked his lips. “There’s nothing I’d rather do than spend the day with you.”

Cody held up his hand for another high five before shoving the rest of his toast in his mouth. “There’s a car auction on TV.” He hurried toward the living room, but his steps were sluggish, like he hadn’t gotten ten hours of sleep the night before, even though he’d been asleep every time she checked on him.

Kristi watched him through the gap between the counter and cupboards, her heart breaking a little more, the way it did every day at the reminder of how frail her son was. She was so focused on him that she didn’t realize Zach had moved to her side until he reached in front of her to pop his bowl into the dishwasher. His nearness made her jump.

“You don’t have to go with us, you know.”

His forehead wrinkled into three even lines as his lips pursed to the side. His eyes grew intense, but he kept his voice low. “We don’t know when Cole might try again. But I promise I’m going to be with you when he does.”

His words filled her with mixed emotions. He spoke like there was no doubt that Cole would try again, and the certainty raced through her veins like icicles in a Montana winter. But there was warm comfort in his promise to stay by her side.

Three hours later Zach was ready to go with them. He’d zipped up Cody’s jacket, helped the boy into the backseat and climbed behind the wheel of the car before she’d even tamed her hair.

“Are you coming, Momma?” Cody yelled from his booster seat.

She slipped into the passenger side, buckling up before attempting to wrangle her hair into a ponytail.

Cody made a clucking sound. “I like it when your hair is down.”

“Me, too.”

She jumped at Zach’s gravelly whisper.

The simple fact that he’d thought about the way she wore her hair made her fingers forget how to work. She lost her grip on the hair band, and it shot across the car, smacking into his shoulder. In a flash, he caught it and handed it back to her.

“I guess you don’t agree.”

“I didn’t—that was an accident.”

He shot a sly look in her direction. “Sure it was.”

Those knowing looks he kept sending her way were making her stomach squirm. In an entirely not unpleasant way.

And she didn’t like it one bit.

He was going to be close by until Cole was captured. She’d put up with it until then. And then she could put a little space between them.

Space. That’s what she needed.

* * *

Zach followed Kristi’s stiff directions to one of the hospital’s side entrances. She hadn’t said much since he’d teased her about her hair, and she’d leaned about as far away from him as she could get in the small car.

He made a mental note to keep his thoughts about her hair to himself. Which was too bad. She had gorgeous hair. Gorgeous everything, really.

But those curls. They were practically an invitation to run his fingers through them.

Not that he would. Ever.

At least not without a verbal invitation—which he doubted he’d ever get.

He found a parking spot and stepped out of the car. And just as he was about to open the back door, a white circle danced across the roof of the car. Like a reflection from a mirror, it bounced back and forth. But the angle was all wrong for it to come from another car.

He squinted into the sun, searching for anything that would cause it, but he couldn’t see a thing.

As quickly as it had appeared, it vanished—leaving behind an unsettled feeling in his stomach.

“You okay?” Kristi asked. “Do you want me to get him?”

“No. I mean, I’m fine. I’ll get Cody.” He opened up the door, still looking over his shoulder, but there was nothing. No suspicious cars in the parking lot. No one on the roof of the adjacent building. Yet his senses were all screaming that something was about to happen. That he had to be alert.

As he set Cody on his feet and closed the door, he surveyed their surroundings one last time. The only other people in the parking lot were a family of four, including a baby in a car seat, and two nurses in their blue scrubs.

Maybe his body hadn’t relaxed after a year of being on edge, every minute of every day. But this wasn’t Lybania, and he wasn’t facing terrorists. Maybe he was seeing something that wasn’t there.

Except the shiver running down his back didn’t ease.

Pressing a hand to Kristi’s back and wrapping his other arm around Cody’s shoulders, he ushered them toward the sliding glass doors that announced the cardiology unit. Cody shuffled his feet and nearly tripped over a low curb, but Zach grabbed the back of his shirt to keep him up.

“Want a lift, little man?”

Cody looked up with drooping eyes and a sad frown and gave him a quick nod.

He scooped Cody up in time to see Kristi mouth a quick “Thank you.” Cody was small for his age but still too big for Kristi to carry very far. He couldn’t help but wonder how she’d managed for so long on her own. Had she just powered through because there was nothing else to be done?

As they reached the sidewalk in front of the building, they moved to the side to allow a large group to exit. But just before they could step inside, the world exploded.

A gunshot split the crowd, its crack sharper than a whip. Every eye turned to the column right in front of Zach, a cloud of dust escaping from the fresh bullet hole. When a second shot rocketed past them, everyone screamed at once.

The noise was deafening. High-pitched and terrified, shrieks echoed off the side of the building, surrounding them and building fear with every reverberation.

He had to shut it out so he could do what needed to be done. Protect the target. Identify the shooter. Those tasks were all that mattered.

Grabbing Kristi’s arm, he spun them behind a large potted plant and squatted low. Running his hands up and down Cody’s arms and legs in search of an injury, he demanded, “Were you hit?” When Kristi didn’t answer, he jerked his head in her direction. “Were you hit?”

She frantically shook her head as another bullet tore through the shrubbery over their heads. He pulled her close, tucking her beneath his arm and covering her body with his, Cody sandwiched between them. He couldn’t tell who was shaking—Cody, his mom or both. So he ran his hands up and down their arms to keep them engaged. He couldn’t let them check out yet. Not when there was no telling what would come next.

What came next was more bullets in quick succession. He kept his breathing even and his hands steady. If only he could get a good look at the shooter. But when he tried to peek over the top of the large urn, another shot went off, this one far too close to his ear.

The others who had been by the entrance were long gone, sprinting toward their cars. Thankfully the sidewalks were clean. No sign of blood or injury.

Because the shooter was targeting only one person.

It made his chest ache and his head spin, and he couldn’t hold Kristi’s trembling form close enough. Her head fit under his chin, her shoulder beneath his.

“It’s okay,” he said. “It’s going to be okay.”

But his words didn’t make the hail of bullets stop.

And then he heard the sweet song of police sirens. Just like that, as quickly as they’d started, the shots ended.

He didn’t dare get up until every window and roof on the opposite building had been checked. Most likely the cops had scared the shooter off. But Zach wasn’t about to play fast and loose with the lives in his arms.

He released Kristi just enough for her to look up at him, eyes wild and curls askew. Her face was filled with a hundred questions, but she only dropped her gaze to her son and cupped his cheeks in her palms. “Are you all right?”

Cody looked mildly shell-shocked but shrugged anyway. “I’m okay.”

She turned her arm, and Zach saw a red swath from her elbow to her shoulder. Grabbing her with less finesse and more fear, he said, “I thought you said you weren’t hit.” The words were harsher than he’d intended, but the dread that clogged his throat demanded nothing less.

Kristi followed his gaze to the smear of blood and frowned, looking puzzled. “It’s not me. I’m not...” Her eyes widened in alarm when she looked at his shoulder. “Oh, Zach.”

She scrambled to pull off her sweater and pressed it against his arm.

Pain seared through him like a flash of lightning. It was as if his entire arm was on fire, and he hadn’t even noticed. Only now could he feel the blood rolling down to his elbow.

But at least it was his and not hers.