Page 47 of Dangerously Yours

“It wasn’t an accident. Oh God! Oh God! Oh God!”

She was back to those two words, and the terror on her face was quickly turning to guilt. “Do you know who this was?”

I didn’t know anyone who drove that sort of car, but it was obvious that Lulu did. Was it possible that she knew who had shot me? And even scarier, was she right about the shooter actually aiming for her? Shaking my head, I refused to believe it. Lulu was an upstanding citizen, and single mother of three, and I couldn’t imagine anyone having beef with her, especially one so severe to do something so drastic.

She was now pacing, and I could see the glistening of her cheeks which let me know that she was crying. “Lulu,” I called out to her, and she stopped in her tracks.

“I’m so sorry, Noah. Can you ever forgive me?”

“Forgive you? For what? You’re talking crazy. Please sit down and breathe,” I told her, then winced as a sudden movement from me sent another wave of both nausea and pain from my ribs outward.

Lulu did come back over to me, but she didn’t sit. I watched as she would open her mouth, then close it right away. Something truly had her spooked, and I was determined to figure out what it was. “Who do you know in a silver sports car?”

“N-nobody,” she stammered, but before I could ask her why she was so upset then, she gulped, then elaborated further. “A few weeks ago, I was walking home from the office and I was nearly run off the road by someone in a silver sports car.”

“You werewhat?” I didn’t care that the machine beside me started to beep like crazy, or that my entire chest was throbbing.

“I thought it was an accident. The car had veered toward me and as I rushed onto the sidewalk, my shoe caught and I stumbled. The car stopped, and I thought whoever was inside was going to come to my aid. John did instead, and the car sped off. I hadn’t seen it since, so I was convinced it was a random act. If you saw it too, and they returned with guns, then...”

I could see what she was so upset now because I was getting there myself. Never, would I ever blame her for this, though. Lulu had thought it was a simple accident, and who could blame her. She had no reason to suspect that anyone would try to run her down. Who would have something to gain from doing that?

As soon as I asked myself that question, my own blood ran cold. There was one person who had the means, motive, and opportunity to hurt Lulu. This person would have the most to gain from her demise, and it sickened me. I wracked my brain trying to remember if I had ever seen the perpetrator in a silver car, and although I couldn’t remember, we didn’t exactly run in the same circles.

The beeping got louder, as did the roar of my heartbeat in my ear. I looked back over at Lulu, but everything became blurry. I could barely see her, or anything else. Trying to raise my hand to reach for her, I clutched at air. My arms and legs began to shake uncontrollably, and each movement had my ribs screaming out in agony. I tried opening my mouth, but nothing came out. Voices became more numerous and I couldn’t make out one from another. Only a few words were even distinguishable, especially when I heard ‘code blue’ just before everything went dark.

Seconds, or maybe minutes later, I was standing beside myself in the bed. It was strange to look down and see myself lying there as the doctors tried restarting my heart via the use of a defibrillator.The machine beside me had a flat line, and I truly wondered if I was dead. If I was, would I really be standing here? This had to be some sort of sick dream. As I scanned the room, Lulu was nowhere to be found. Had she left me? Or had she truly been there at all?

I rarely took any kind of medication so the strong painkiller they administered via the IV was doing one hell of a job on me. I heard the voices continue to get more frantic, so I turned my attention from the door back to a version of me in the bed. The medical staff moved like ants in a frenzy, but beyond them was a white light. People often joked about walking into one upon death, and if it was just within reach, maybe I hadn’t actually perished yet.

“Noah, baby. Come to Momma.”

I looked up and straight ahead was the woman I had nearly forgotten about these last twenty years. While I really only had pictures to remember her by, that voice had always been in the recesses of my mind. Once upon a time, I had loved her so much. It had been because I hadn’t known about the drugs, alcohol, and wild flings. She hadn’t been some cracked out whore to me as my father used to refer to as, but she was my mother, and the woman I used to run to with every scraped knee and tummy ache. Until her death had torn my world apart, she had essentially been mine.

“Momma,” I whispered.

“Yes, baby. Come to me. It’s time for us to go.”

I was torn on whether to stay or go, and the longer I stayed in the state of indecision, the more she pleaded with me. If death was inevitable, what good was I doing by prolonging it? Withthat in mind, I tried my hardest to put Lulu out of my head. As I took a step toward the light, so many memories flashed through my mind. Some were of the woman I loved, but others were her kids... my teammates... my friends... I didn’t want to go.

LULU

I was going out of my mind with worry. Once Noah coded, I knew he was gone. The pain in my chest had been so severe that when I was thrown out of his room, I barely took two steps before I nearly collapsed. Thankfully, someone else had been hovering nearby, and was able to come to my rescue. I had clung to Gabriel as he caught me, then swept me up into his arms. After, he carried me to the waiting room and set me down where I had been sitting before.

“What happened? Is Noah going to be okay?”

“H-he...” I couldn’t even say it. The tears streaming down my cheeks said what I was unable to say, and I heard the other man curse.

“Is he dead?” The terror in his voice was a direct reflection of mine, and unsure, I could only shrug my shoulders.

“I don’t know. He coded, and they made me leave. Oh God, he has to be alright. He just has to be.”

“Shhh,” Gabriel told me as he pulled me into his arms.

I didn’t deserve the comfort he was offering, but I took it anyway. Gabriel pressed his chin against the top of my head as he slowly rubbed my back. “Just calm down. I’m going to go see what I can find out, okay?” I nodded, then hiccuped on a sob. “You have to promise me that you will stay right here.”

“I will,” I promised, if for no other reason than my need to know what was going on.

Noah and I had been talking, then his expression turned into a blank stare before he had what I assumed was a seizure. Amanda had them as a child each time she took antibiotics. By the third one, they realized her penicillin allergy, and she had thankfully never had one again after that. As scary as those were, watching the man I love struggle to breathe as his heart slowed to a stop was more than I could handle.

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