Sweetest Temptations by J.C. Valentine
Once he was inside the freezer and out of view, I took a chance and rushed into the kitchen, tucking myself into a compact ball behind a cart piled with discount boxes. I needed a plan, something that would get me closer without being noticed.
Voices carried from inside the freezer, but I couldn’t make out the words over the hum of appliances. In a moment of genius—or pure stupidity—I took hold of the cart and wheeled it closer, using it as a shield.
Luck was on my side today. In a dozen painfully slow steps, I made it close enough to the freezer to hear what was going on inside. Findlay was demanding to know where “The Bitch” was.
“You can scream and shout all day, but we’re not talking,” Kennedy answered, his voice sounding off.
“You will tell me.”
“And if I don’t?”
There was a tremendous explosion. It reverberated off the walls and up through the floor into my chest. I screamed, and then clapped a hand over my mouth. Oh my God. He’d shot Kennedy.
Yelling and confusion followed. Findlay was issuing more threats. Dex was throwing some right back. Ronnie was screaming, asking Findlay if he knew what he’d done. And then I heard Kennedy, loud and clear, over all the rest. Bless his heart, his smart mouth was still running, taunting Findlay.
“You can shoot everyone in this room. I guarantee someone out there is going to hear it. How are you going to explain this one to your pals down at the station when they drag you in there in handcuffs?”
“You don’t talk to me unless you’re asked a question, you hear me? You don’t talk!” Findlay’s voice was shaking with rage, and I knew, if Kennedy didn’t stop talking, something worse was going to happen.
“Fine, I won’t talk, but how are you going to get any answers?”
Dammit, I could almost hear Kennedy smiling. Did he want to get shot? Inhaling deeply, I closed my eyes and tried to push all of my nerves down deep. This was no time to get a case of the shakes. People could die.
As calmly as possible, I stood up tall, abandoning my cover, and walked with purpose to the freezer opening. Findlay was cursing and gesticulating wildly, his gun waving around all over the place, but my attention wasn’t on him.
It was on Ronnie, who’d been shot in the left thigh. Blood oozed through his fingers, and the agony twisting his face tore at my conscience. How could I let this happen? How could I allow my friends to get caught in the crossfire?
“If you want me,” I said, cutting off Findlay’s tirade, “here I am.”
He spun around, eyes crazed. Behind him, Kennedy paled, looking about as sick as I felt. But at least he didn’t have a gun pointed at him anymore. Although, I couldn’t say I felt any better about looking down the barrel of one myself.
That whole life-flashing-before-your-eyes deal was a lie. Time didn’t reverse itself in some dreamy montage. It slowed to a crawl, where every breath sounded like a vacuum between my ears, where every heartbeat crashed against my ribs. My tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth, and I thought, this is it. This is how I die.
Then it all burst back into real-time, as if someone hit fast-forward on the DVD player.
“There you are. Finally decide to come out of hiding?” Findlay asked, deceptively calm even as he pointed the gun in my face.
“Why are you doing this?” I asked, needing to know. If I was going to die tonight, then I wanted to know why.
“You just had to buy it, didn’t you? Do you even know what you cost me? I sunk my life savings into this place!”
I felt my face scrunch in confusion. “What are you talking about? The building was empty when I bought it.”
I stepped back as Findlay started laughing hysterically. “You stupid bitch. Didn’t you ever stop to ask yourself why a business that had been empty for two years was outfitted with all the latest equipment? Why all the permits were up-to-date?”
I had, but my agent explained that the previous owner was in the middle of renovations when it came on the market. There was no other story behind it. Nothing else to go on. All she knew was that it was the right size and in the right location. “You were the other bidder,” I whispered, my voice weak.
“Every penny. You cost me every penny!” The hand holding the gun shook the more he yelled, and I really grew nervous.
Raising my hands in front of me, I waited for him to shoot. “Please, Findlay, you don’t have to do this. If you want the place, you can have it. I’ll sign it over to you tonight, if that’s what you want, but don’t hurt us.”
“Abby, stop talking,” Kennedy warned, his hard gaze focused on Findlay’s profile.
“No, you stop talking, before I put a hole in you, too,” Findlay growled.
“What are you gonna do, shoot all of us?” Kennedy asked. “That gun holds six bullets. You’ve already shot two of us.” My eyes flew to him, and I realized with horror that Kennedy was holding his side, a large crimson stain spreading out around his hand in a gruesome circle. “That’s one for each of us, buddy, assuming you’re a good aim.”
“I’m a cop. I know how to shoot a gun.”
“Do you? How many times have you used it in the field? How many times have you shot a moving target? Are you willing to take the risk that you can get off all four shots before one of us takes you down?”
“Ken, please,” I whimpered. “Don’t push him.”
“Yeah, Ken, don’t push me.” Turning to me, Findlay smirked evilly. “Turn around and start walking and I won’t kill your boyfriend.”
“Abby.” Kennedy’s voice was filled with warning, but with that kind of promise, I couldn’t say no. I started walking. “Abby!”
My entire body trembled with each step, but I pressed on. If I could get Findlay a far enough distance away from them, it might give them enough time to get away, or lock themselves in. Hell, maybe the police would show up in time to save us all. Halfway to the door, Findlay made a thoughtful sound in his throat.
I glanced over my shoulder to see that he hadn’t followed. Standing in front of the open freezer, he tilted his head. “You know, I thought it would be enough to kill you, but now that I think about it, you should know what it feels like to lose something you love, too.”
I was running before I made the conscious choice to do so, but I was too late. Screaming, I watched Findlay raise his arm and fire into the freezer.
21
There was so much blood, that I couldn’t tell where it was all coming from. As Kennedy lay bleeding, I pressed my hands to the move obvious wounds—one in his side and the other in his upper left chest.
“How does it feel to know you’re about to lose something you care about?” Findlay taunted me. “To know something you had hopes and plans for has been taken from you?”
I gritted my teeth, the urge to lash out strong. But I wasn’t the one with the gun. “We need an ambulance.” My voice trembled as I watched the life draining from Kennedy’s face. His skin held a sickly pallor that scared me.
“You think I’m going to help you?” Findlay laughed. “You really are a stupid bi—”
“Call a fucking ambulance, you piece of shit!” I was on my feet in an instant, rage surging through me and making me brave. Findlay’s expression was one of shock, as if he never expected me to stand up to him. But I was now.
“Sit down and shut up before I shoot you, too.”
“Go ahead and shoot me then, because if you don’t make that call right now, neither one of us is leaving here unless it’s on a stretcher.”
Findlay opened his mouth to say something, and then stopped, tilting his head to the side as if listening. Then I heard it. The faint sound of sirens in the distance.
My lip curled. Finally. “That’s right, Findlay. I called the cops. I guess you should have thought this out a little better, huh?” I’m not sure what I thought he would do. Panic? Maybe try and make a break for it through the back door? What I didn’t expect was for Findlay to sink into an absolute state of calm.
“Well played,
Why was he still standing here talking? “Aren’t you going to run or something? Before your police friends storm in here and find out it was you all along?”
“Oh, I’m sure they have some idea, and you’re wrong. They’re not my friends. When I turned in my badge last night, not one of them shed a tear or asked me to stay. Can you believe that? Fifteen years on the force and all I get is a pat on the back as I walk out the door. So you see, I’ve got nothing left to lose.” His face shifted and he bared his teeth. “You took it all.”
His face was the last thing I saw before he pulled the trigger.
***
I woke up in the hospital some time later feeling as if I’d been run over by an eighteen-wheeler. A nurse with pale hair and small features smiled at me as she replaced my IV drip. “Well hello there. My name is Crystal, and I’m your nurse for the evening. How are you feeling?”
“What happened? Where’s Kennedy?” I sat up, searching the room.
“You’ve had quite a night. Let me go grab the doctor and he’ll answer all your questions.”
Once the doctor finally decided to grace me with his presence, I issued the same questions as before. “You were involved in a shooting. Fortunately, the bullet missed,” he said as I ran my hands over myself for the point of entry. “You fainted, which is why you’re here now. You hit your head pretty hard on the floor, but we performed a CT scan and everything looks good.”
“When am I getting out of here?” I asked, my thoughts focused on finding Kennedy.
“We can have you out of here within the hour. I’ll have someone at the desk start the paperwork.”
While I waited, I tried to stay on my best behavior and keep to my room. The doctor refused to tell me anything about Kennedy, or Dex or Ronnie, for that matter. We weren’t married or related, so they couldn’t release their information to me. They wouldn’t even tell me if we were in the same hospital.
I distracted myself with what the doctor had said about my injuries instead. I hadn’t been shot. I’d fainted. What a horribly girlie thing to do! I was embarrassed for myself. But if I hadn’t been shot, who had? God, what if Findlay had killed Ken instead?
Moments away from a full-blown panic attack, someone knocked on my door. I looked up to see Jack’s smiling face. “Hey, you’re awake. We were wondering when you’d come around.” As he walked in, several more of Kennedy’s crew filed in behind him.
“Hey, what are you doing here? I thought personal information wasn’t allowed to be given to non-family members.”
“Haven’t you heard? Heroes get special privileges. And who says we’re not family?”
I accepted hugs from everyone, warmed by their outward show of caring. “Do any of you know how Ken is? No one will tell me anything, and I’m kind of freaking out.”
Standing at the foot of my bed, Jack’s stony expression was difficult to read. “They took him into surgery a couple hours ago to try and repair the damage. He’s lost a lot of blood, but the guy’s tough as nails. He’ll be climbing ladders in no time.”
His words didn’t make me feel any better. Jack gripped my ankle through the blankets. “We’ve lost good men before, but today isn’t one of those times, okay?”
I nodded, unable to speak for the lump in my throat.
“You should know your friends have already gone home. They told me to tell you they’d check in on you later.”
My gaze shot up. “They’re okay?”
“Yeah, the shorter one was shot in the outer thigh. It passed right through, so they patched him up and sent him on his way, and the pretty one walked away without a scratch.”
“What about Findlay? Did he get away?”
Jack laughed darkly. “He’s upstairs in ICU. When numb nuts tried to shoot you, the bullet went wide, hit the metal wall and bounced back, hitting him in the hip. He would have bled out if we hadn’t already been there.”
“You were there?”
“First responders. A call came in there’d been shots fired and, surprise surprise, we beat the police to the scene. Normally, we’re not supposed to go into a situation like that until it’s been cleared, but it was your place and I couldn’t just stand by and do nothing.”
Tears welled in my eyes and Jack looked at the floor as if willing a hole to open up and suck him in. Thankfully, all the heavy was broken up by Hope’s cheerful voice as she entered the room.
“Good lord,” she said, weaving her way through all the men, taking care not to hit them in the faces with the bundle of giant balloons she carried. Her eyes flashed devilishly as she approached the bed. “You’ve been holding out on me, woman.” After a bone-crushing hug and ensuring that I was okay, she set the weighted balloons aside and offered her hand to Jack.
“Hi, I’m Abby’s friend, Hope. And you must be…”
“Jack,” he said, grinning. I couldn’t help noticing how the two were devouring each other with their eyes.
“Jack, Abby had told me so little about you, I feel like we hardly know each other.”
I laughed and settled in as the two introduced themselves as if no one else were in the room. Hope was bubbly and charming, and Jack was eating up every word. I could tell these two would be seeing more of each other.
After being discharged from the hospital, Hope and Jack promised to check in on Wilbur while one of the guys escorted me to Kennedy’s room where he lay unconscious well into the following evening. He had dark circles under his eyes, his arm was in a sling and stark white bandages wrapped around his waist. Still, he looked beautiful to me. I, on the other hand, was a greasy mess who was overdue for a shower. But when he finally came around, and those jewel-like eyes met mine, I couldn’t care less what I looked like.
“I thought you were dead,” I said on a choked whisper. Even though it took obvious effort, Kennedy lifted his arm and cupped the back of my head. “There was so much blood, and I thought he had killed you. I thought we were all going to die.”
“I never would have let that happen, sweet,” he said, his voice rough. “I had a plan.”
I smiled and leaned up to kiss him lightly. “I know you did.” Sitting back down, I held his hand in mine, studying the differences—his tough, dark skin versus my soft, pale skin. “All this time I was worried you’d die in a fire,” I confessed, taking Hope’s advice to let him inside my head. “I worried about it every time you walked out the door, and that’s probably never going to change. But I never once considered something like this. Seeing you lying there, shot, because of me…” I shook my head, no words coming out.
Taking my chin between his thumb and forefinger, Kennedy raised my face up. “This isn’t your fault, sweet. You couldn’t have known that some psychopath wanna-be-bakery-owner was going to lose his mind and make you his target.”
“But it is my fault. I took his dreams away from him.”
“No, he did that all on his own. Abby, I talked to Findlay. He was the owner’s son. When he died, the building passed to his mother, and she’s the one who put it on the market. Findlay thought if he could fix it up, he could talk her into giving it to him, but she refused.”
“So he was the other bidder?” Kennedy nodded grimly and my shoulders sagged. Now that I had confirmation, it felt as though all the pieces I’d been given were finally falling into place. “So he was right, I ruined his life.” God, what kind of monster was I? My head dropped down, and I squeezed my eyes shut. How the hell could I hate someone whose life I’d destroyed?
“Abigail, that’s bullshit and you know it. You didn’t ruin anything. He took a risk and lost. Normal people pick themselves up and dust themselves off. They don’t try to kill people. So you’d better not let this guy stop you from living your dream.”
After throwing myself a brief pity party, I dried my eyes on my shirtsleeve and lifted my head. “You’re right.
Taking my hand, Kennedy pulled me onto the bed and I stretched out beside him. “You’re really special to me, Abby,” he said into my hair. “I didn’t realize just how much until I saw you standing there with that gun pointed at you.”
“I know.” And I did, because while I knew I loved Kennedy well before now, I didn’t realize how much either until just that moment.
“Sometimes it takes almost losing someone to admit what’s happening in here.” With the hand already resting against his chest thanks to the sling holding his arm in place, he covered his heart. “Life isn’t promised to any of us, and I don’t want to live mine with regrets. Marry me, Abby. Let’s not waste another minute of the time we have left on this earth.”
Beneath my ear, Kennedy’s heart pounded violently. With mine echoing his, I tilted my head back and looked into his eyes. “I agree, let’s not waste another minute.”
THE END
Other Books Available by J.C. Valentine
Raine
Night Calls Series
Stranded
That First Kiss
Surrender to Love
Trust
Wayward Fighters Series
Knockout
Tapout
About the Author
J.C. Valentine
USA Today Bestselling author J.C. Valentine is the alter-ego of Brandi Salazar, whose enjoyment of tales of romance spurred her to branch out and create her own.
She lives in the Northwest with her husband, their wild children, and far too many pets. As a university student, she studies literature, which goes well with her dream of becoming an editor. Brandi entertains a number of hobbies including reading and photography, but her first love is writing fiction-in all its forms. Connect with JC on Facebook!