Page 59 of Embattled Ever After

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Aiden slammed onhis brakes behind the woman’s vehicle. It sat oddly, one wheel up over a mound of snow-covered dirt. The vehicle that attacked her had spun away and raced down the street. Aiden was faced with rescuing the woman or chasing down the mercenary who’d been watching them all these months, just waiting to draw Aiden out. This was his chance to finally catch the bastard, but Aiden was more concerned about Shannon.

It was his fault she was in this position.

Cursing a blue streak, he headed to the vehicle with the woman behind the wheel. She was slumped over, blood leaking from a cut on her temple. Even as she watched she began to rouse, one hand going to the cut on her head.

“You need to stay still,” he told her softly. Reaching past her he grabbed her phone. The damn thing wasn’t even locked—what kind of security was that?—and paged through her contacts.

John Palmer came up as her primary contact. Pressing the dial button he waited patiently, then held it to her ear when the line connected. The woman straightened even more when she heard her fiancé’s voice.

“John? Hey, babe, not to stress you out or anything but I think you need to come get me. I’ve had a bit of an accident.”

At that point she looked up at Aiden and he saw the fear slam through her. He held up his hands in the palm up, ‘I’m not going to hurt you’ pose and she seemed to relax. “No,” she murmured into the phone. “There’s a guy here with me. I’m fine. Just shook up.”

She glanced up into the rearview mirror, grimacing when she saw the blood. “Yes, babe, please just come get me and we’ll talk about it. I’m in the construction lot behind the Lowes on Quebec Street. I love you.”

She dropped the phone back into the center console and rested her head back against the headrest, then she rocked it to look at him. “Thank you so much for stopping. You didn’t get that license plate by chance, did you?”

Aiden shook his head. The plate had been removed. “There was no plate on the back.”

She frowned, spreading her hand over her eyes. “What the hell?

He glanced up the street, wondering how long he had to get out of here. It took approximately seven minutes to get to the LNF offices from here. Probably only five for the men coming now. They would break every law they could to get to Palmer’s woman.

Shannon made a move to get out of the car, but he forestalled her. “Why don’t you wait? I called an EMT squad when I pulled up. They should be here any minute.”

As if in answer to his words, they heard the wail of a siren. Shannon grimaced. “I don’t think I’m hurt that badly. If anything, my fiancé can drive me.”

“I think to be safe you should let the squad haul you. You’d rather be safe than sorry, right?”

She nodded her head, then grabbed it with a hand. “Oh, that hurts,” she moaned.

Aiden didn’t think she’d hit too hard. The front of the car seemed fine mechanically, other than being stuck on the dirty snow hill. He wanted to go to the back, though, and look at the damage the other car had done.

No, he would wait here with her, protect her in case LeBoutin returned. There was nothing else to do.

The ambulance arrived and he told them what happened. He got a shock, though, when Shannon advised them she was pregnant. He had to stop and stare, the stakes suddenly much higher. The ambulance personnel immediately began to bundle her onto the stretcher. Before she could notice he was missing, Aiden had taken off.

The old truck started with a rumble, but leapt to life as he pressed the accelerator, going in the same direction as the other car. It had been dark gray or charcoal and had left visible damage to the back of her Ford. The bumper was partially ripped off and the lift gate crunched. Aiden hoped John and his men would have a little luck tracking the guy down, but he knew they wouldn’t. Shannon’s aggressor had been too good. He’d waited until she was frazzled and in a worried state before taking action, and he’d almost lost control jouncing through that field. But the man had done exactly what he’d planned to do—he’d drawn John Palmer out into the open.

***

John raced outof the office building, Chad right on his heels. As soon as he reached the parking lot he pressed the remote to unlock the truck and engaged the lift, as well as the remote start. The wheels of the wheelchair skidded sideways on a patch of ice, but he controlled it and kept going, weaving through the other cars in the lot. Shannon’s normal parking space right in front of John’s was conspicuously empty. Chad jumped into the passenger side and snapped on his seatbelt as John was lifted into place by the hydraulic. He slammed the end of the seatbelt into the latch and shifted the truck into gear.

When he accelerated into the road, tires squealed and horns honked, but John didn’t pay them any mind. If Shannon was hurt, he needed to get there as quickly as he could. And within four and a half minutes, he was slamming to a halt behind a Denver squad car, lights flashing.

“Wait here,” Chad told him quickly. “I don’t see her so they may have already taken her to the hospital.”

John gnashed his teeth as he waited for Chad to check with the officer to see where the victim had gone. He glanced around for a moment and asked another question, but the officer, a tall young kid, just shook his head. With a wave of thanks, Chad jogged back to the truck and hopped into the cab.

“They took her to St. Joseph hospital. A Good Samaritan stopped to check on her and was the one who called 911, but the cop says he was gone by the time he pulled in. The car will be towed. It’s got heavy rear end damage, like someone forced her into this field and left. There are tire tracks leaving the site a few hundred yards away. The cop is going to photograph everything and he’ll be in to talk to Shannon in a bit, once she gets checked out.”

Without a word, John turned the truck and headed toward St. Joseph. By the time they arrived, just a few minutes later, Shannon had already been taken back into emergency. Her pregnancy probably escalated her care. Chad, ever the convincing sweet-talker, found out where she was and guided John back there. As soon as he whipped the curtain back and saw Shannon with his own eyes though, John realized he had been more worried that she would be more injured. Instead, she sat perched on an elevated table, a square of bandage on her head. “Are you okay?” he growled.

Shannon’s eyes filled with tears but she nodded her head. Then, in spite of Chad’s protests beside her, she slipped off the bed and down into his lap. John clutched her to him fiercely. His heart still thundered in his chest and his hands quivered as they cupped her jaw so that he could look at her.

Though a little battered, she felt fine now that he was there with her. “What the fuck happened?”

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