Page 20 of Trial By Fire
“Yes, beautiful! I want to get married. To you. I want you and only you. I want you to be the first thing I see when I wake up, and the last thing I see when I go to sleep. I want you in my arms. I want you to have my last name. When I’m deployed, I want you to be the one I call every chance I get. The one I send letters to. The one I’m rushing home to.”
“You know, besides the name thing, you can still do all that without the ring,” Trish commented cheekily to Jackson.
“Babe, you’re lucky you’re pregnant and in this bed right now. Otherwise, I’d be putting your sexy ass over my knee and spanking it for that comment.”
“I love you, Jackson,” Trish said out loud, looking over at him.
“I love you too, babe. I have for a while but was too much of a coward to admit it. I lost you once and almost lost you again. I’m not letting you go. Ever!”
CHAPTER
TWENTY-TWO
Trish spent the next several days chained to the bed. Ok, well, not physically chained, but medically chained to the bed. She was put on medical leave from work for the next two weeks and she wasn’t happy. While she was grateful for the downtime, she wasn’t happy that it would be for two solid weeks. A week she could handle, but not two.
Jackson managed to take a leave of absence for those two weeks to be there to help her heal and wait on her hand and foot. While they had talked about what type of wedding they wanted, they had decided to elope. They, along with Bradley, Lola, Tiffany, and Cooper, went down to the courthouse and got married. Surprising both of them, the other two couples all did the same thing. The event with Trish made the others realize life was short and it needed to be spent with the ones you love.
Jackson had been very attentive to her and letting her know how much he loved her and how happy they were going to be spending the rest of their lives together. He cooked for her, carried her into the living room, plopping her up on the couch, rubbed her feet, cuddled with her, and talked with her about anything and everything.
They simply enjoyed their life. Today, they had decided they needed to go and get groceries to get them through the rest of the week. Jackson was in the bedroom finishing getting dressed.
“Hey, babe. I’m going to run out to my car really quick. I need to grab my briefcase.”
“Ok! I’ll be right out,” Jackson yelled out to her, putting his shoes on.
He checked his phone to see a text from both Bradley and Cooper saying they were game. He was arranging a surprise lunch for Trish so that she could see both Lola and Tiffany for some girl time and some pampering. The guys were taking them to a local spa after lunch before they went grocery shopping. His wife needed it.
His wife.
God, he would never get tired of saying that. Last night they talked about making the spare room into a nursery. They were talking about baby names and whether they wanted a boy or a girl. He didn’t care, as long as the baby was healthy. It would be a part of him and Trish. That’s all that mattered to him.
As he walked out the front door, he heard a loudpopsound. Looking up he saw Valarie standing there with a gun trained on his wife who flew back a few feet, blood spurting out of her chest.
Before he could register his actions, he pulled his weapon and fired a shot at Valarie, taking the woman down with a bullet between the eyes. Not even looking to see if his aim was true, he rushed to Trish as he called 9-1-1. Not even stopping to think, he picked her up and put her in his truck and rushed her to the hospital.
“Please God, let her live. She’s already been through everything under the sun. Please don’t take her from me. Not when you just brought her back to me.”
Jackson kept pleading with God and telling Trish to hold on, they were almost to the hospital. With the 9-1-1 operator on theline, he advised her of what street he was turning on and what he was driving. He let them know what happened and that there was still one-woman lying dead in his yard. He advised them that Trish was a cop and so many more other things that was needed for them to know.
When he got to the hospital, emergency staff was ready and waiting for him. They pulled Trish out of his truck and rushed her into the hospital. By the time Lola and the others arrived, he was a wreck. He’d just got the woman of his dreams back and now he was in danger of losing her because of a psychotic woman who didn’t know how to handle rejection. This was all his fault.
“Don’t you even think it, Jackson Anderson!” Lola’s stern voice warned him.
“It is my fault, Lola. If I hadn’t been a fucking coward the first time, I never would have fucked that bitch in the alleyway. She never would have been a part of our lives.”
“No! This is all on Valarie. You’ve told her several times to go away. She only focused on you when she wasn’t getting her way with the doctor she was trying to trap. She was already on the crazy end,” Tiffany advised Jackson, standing next to Lola.
“Oh, that bitch was more than on the crazy end,” Lola snorted towards Tiffany.
“Yeah, but it got more so in the last month,” Tiffany told Lola and the guys.
“What do you mean?” Jackson asked, staring up at Tiffany.
“That doctor she was banging fired her and dumped her all on the same day. He found out that Valarie was sending threatening notes to his wife. Tried to run the man’s wife off the road a few times, even hired someone to take her out. Word has it that she tried to make it look like it was the doctor who had been orchestrating everything. Then they found out she had stolen some serious narcotics from the medicine lab. They hadher on video, too. She was fired. One of the other nurses said she lost her shit when she found out from them that Trish was pregnant and that you two had gotten married. She was already on that edge. Karma was kicking her ass.”
“Bitch isn’t doing nothing now except rotting in hell where she belongs,” Lola grumbled. “What the fuck is taking so damn long. She’s been in there for hours.”
“Let me go check and see who’s on staff. Come with me, Lola. Maybe if they see how grumpy you are, it will light a fire under them.”
