Page 71 of Sadie's Guarded Harbor

Everything snapped into place—the car, the storage unit, the cryptic messages left behind by Shawn. “Unless Shawn wasn’t alone when he ran into Tina Wells.”

“I said enough! Shut up!” Red flooded Melissa’s cheeks.

Disgust coated her stomach as the truth smacked her in the face. “You had to keep Shawn quiet, too, didn’t you? Was the guilt too much for him? Was he finally going to spill your secret?”

“Your time is up. Say goodbye to your boyfriend.” Melissa dropped her gaze to the knife digging into Tommy’s neck. Blood seeped from beneath the blade.

Sadie aimed the gun at Melissa’s knee and pulled the trigger.

“You bitch!” Melissa collapsed into a screaming pile on the ground.

Sadie ran forward and kicked the dropped knife out of her reach.

Deputy Grant secured Melissa’s hands behind her back with handcuffs.

Sadie fell to her knees at Tommy’s side. “Call an ambulance.” Fear made her words tremble more than her erratically pounding heart. She couldn’t lose Tommy. Not after it took her so damn long to find him.

She scanned his blood-soaked shirt. With gentle fingers she lifted the stiff material of his brown uniform. Red stained his torso. Sweat dotted her hairline, and her hands shook. Panic and fear mingled into a giant ball of lead in her throat.

“Ambulance will be here soon,” Deputy Grant said.

A soft moan had her shifting her attention to Tommy’s face. His hooded eyes and pale pallor spiked her blood pressure. He needed help. Fast.

“Sadie.”

She leaned down to hear him and applied pressure to the wound. Blood covered her hands, the irony smell making her dizzy and threatening to pull her back into the past.

But she had to stay present, be in the moment to help Tommy however she could. “Help’s on the way. Everything’s fine. Just relax.” Pressure built in her sinus cavity, and she blinked back tears. She couldn’t fall apart. Not when Tommy needed her most.

“She killed my mom. She was driving the car. Not Shawn.” His eyelids slipped closed.

She waited for them to open, to tell him that he’d finally gotten justice for his mom, but his eyes stayed shut as the wailing of the siren came closer. And when the paramedics burst through the door, all she could do was watch in horror as they pushed her away and worked to save the life of the man she loved.

27

Tommy closed his eyes and sucked in a deep breath of cold air before standing on weak legs. Being in the hospital overnight had made the stringent scent of disinfectant take up permanent residence in his nostrils.

But he couldn’t complain. Things would have been a lot worse if Sadie hadn’t shown up when she did. The paramedics had stopped the bleeding on the way to the hospital, and Dr. Simon’s steady hand had stitched his side back together. He was one lucky sonofabitch that no internal organs had been nicked.

“Sit down,” Sadie said.

“There’s no reason for you to wheel me to the stupid car. Hospital policy is I have to be pushed out the door in a wheelchair. Once I’m outside, I’m a free man.” He sneezed. The stitches on his side stretched. He doubled over and held his ribs until the pain subsided. “Damn. Sneezing hurts almost as bad as being stabbed.”

“Not so tough now, free man. Now sit.” Sadie pushed down on his shoulders until he relented then moved slowly across the parking lot to her car. “And comparing a stab wound to a sneeze might be the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard. But if it hurtsthat bad, I should take you home. When the doctor discharged you this morning, he said you needed rest.”

“I agreed to that before I found out Melissa Downs was being questioned at the station. I need to be there.” A fresh wave of anger washed over him. He clenched his fists on his lap. All these years, the people responsible for ripping away his mom had been right under his nose, living their lives as though nothing had happened.

At least Shawn had succumbed to guilt, or that’s what Tommy assumed led him down a path of alcoholism. But Melissa had kept moving up the ranks, not letting anything slow her down until she got where she wanted.

“I understand. I’d want to be there if I were you.” Sadie rolled him as close as possible to the passenger side door and helped him to his feet after opening it. “But after, we both deserve some time off.”

Leaning an arm on the top of the door, he cupped her cheek. Little marks dinged her face and black stiches ran along her temple. “How about a vacation? You, me, and Amelia. Time where we can talk about what we really want out of life—from each other.” He still hadn’t found an opportunity to dive into a deep conversation about where things stood between them, but he would.

She grinned. “I’d like that, but are you sure you can handle that much time with a rambunctious six-year-old?”

“Absolutely.” A knot of tension loosened at the back of his neck. Screw it. He didn’t need a perfect time to tell her how he felt. If the past days taught him anything, it was that life was short. “But just so you know. I want you, Sadie. Every part of you. I want to make this work because I think we’re great together.”

A light blush stained her cheeks. She pressed her lips to his. “I think so, too.”

---