Blood had already soaked through the shoulder on her shirt, and I yanked my own over my head, balling it up and pressing it to the wound. I didn’t dare look to see how bad it was. I couldn’t. Instead, I focused on the fact that she was still breathing.

At one point, for one brief moment, she opened her eyes, raising her uninjured arm to cup my cheek. “Mikey, it is you.” She smiled, “I love you.” Then her eyes fluttered closed and she was out cold again.

I bent over, practically lying on the floor with her. “I love you, too, Mols. More than you can ever imagine.”

Chapter Twenty-Nine

~ Molly ~

Machines beeped steadily. Codes were called over the intercom in the hallway. People spoke in hushed tones, as if they talked just a little bit louder they’d be disturbing me. Someone needed to tell them that whispering, just low enough so that I couldn’t hear what they were actually saying, was rude. Screw that, I’d tell them. As soon as I got enough energy to open my eyes.

My body was tired. So very tired. But my mind didn’t want to rest right now. Instead, it bounced back and forth like a Ping-Pong ball, from one topic to the next, never settling on one event long enough to get my memories straight. Right now, the events of the last few days had merged into one giant, screwed-up day.

And I was uncomfortable. I’d never really been in the hospital, except when I’d had Bryant, and I was so focused on him I couldn’t tell you if the beds were too soft or the chairs were too hard. This hospital did not consider the comfort level of guests to be a top priority.

There was a rustle next to me, a scrape of wooden legs against the linoleum floor as someone pulled the chair closer to me, and then a warm hand closed around mine. “Babe, time to wake up.”

I wanted to bat at him, make him go away, but my arms wouldn’t cooperate.

Nate laughed. “Come on, sleeping beauty, I brought you coffee.” The smell of Arabica beans wafted under my nose. Damn him and his evil bribery.

I pushed myself up in the chair, eyes still closed, and rolled my neck. When I was finally able to pry one open, my best friend smiled at me. The million-dollar, panty-dropping grin I’d read so much about. The one he knew was contagious. Damn him! I couldn’t help but smile back.

Reaching for the coffee vente Grande, or whatever in the hell they called an extra-large on the west coast, I thanked him, opening the lid and blowing on it. This was real coffee, not the sludge the nurses brewed in the snack room. The smell was enough to make my mouth water.

I’d been stuck in this hospital room, in this hideous pea-green torture chamber they tried to pass off as a chair, for what seemed like days, waiting for Jamie to wake up. Yeah, I walked down to the bathroom, and sometimes I made it to the waiting room where my friends were all camped out. But the majority of the time, I sat here, waiting for the man who tried to kill me to open his eyes.

The officer at the door tried to keep me out at first. I explained that Jamie was my son’s uncle, and that I’d found out I was the only living family he had. It hadn’t worked. They’d said no, sighting something about the fact that he’d tried to kill me. When I’d pointed out that he hadn’t actually shot me, and there was no real way to know if he was really going to pull the trigger, they brought up the fact that my bodyguard had been the one to shoot Jamie. Touché.

Apparently, the Kelly name had reaches far beyond Nashville, though. Some police chief in some Los Angeles department was the son of one of C.C. Kelly’s best friends. Nate’s grandfather may have been a beloved legend, but Nate had a fan club all his own. Not only did this police chief remember C.C. fondly, but his own children were big fans of Nate.

All the man had to do was flash his smile and velvet ropes parted and locked doors opened. Nate explained that even though I thought Jamie was nuts, and didn’t want anything to do with him, the idea of him hurt and alone broke my heart and went against every good Christian value I had. Just like that, I’d been welcomed with open arms.

I hoped that Mike, wherever he was, wasn’t having a rough time. With any luck, the Kelly name was able to offer him protection, too. If not the Kelly name, the fact that he’d been a Navy SEAL and fought for his country for years, almost dying for our freedom, should. Plus, he was a trained and licensed bodyguard. He’d been on the job when he fired his weapon. That had to account for something, right?

I hated that I didn’t know where he was or what was going on. They’d let him come to the hospital with me at least, so he’d been with me when they disinfected my shoulder and bandaged me up. I thought he was going to cry when they told him I was fine and didn’t have to be admitted.

Apparently, I was a really big baby, because if you’d asked me, I would have sworn I’d been shot point blank and that half my shoulder was missing. Hell, it still stung and my arm felt like it was on fire whenever I moved. I’d bled, not the pints I’d assumed, but a little bit, because my skin had been torn and burned when the bullet cut across the top of my skin, grazing me. But there was no actual bullet wound, no hole, and I probably wouldn’t even have a scar.

I wish I could say the same for Jamie. Okay, no I don’t. The bastard held a gun to my head. He’d wanted me to die.

I didn’t want him to die, even if he hated me. It was selfish, I know. He was the only link to Kevin, though, and if Bryant ever wanted to know his birth father, Jamie would be the only person who could help him. I wanted him to live and get the help he needed, so he could one day meet the world’s most amazing little boy.

The medical staff wouldn’t give me much information, but they would tell me when Jamie was doing better, or hint that his latest test results were much better than the one before. Even if I didn’t have all the medical answers, they tolerated me sitting here around the clock and encouraged me to talk to him. I told him stories, tales about his brother and the things we used to do, about my visits with Bryant, and how amazing his nephew was. How much like Kevin he was. The doctors might not tell me, and Jamie hadn’t woken up yet, but even I could see how much better he looked.

The police had interviewed everyone who played a role Jamie’s life, from his boss to his ex-girlfriend—a woman he hadn’t been very nice to. Little by little they pieced together the pieces that I already knew. The portrait of his life wasn’t a pretty one.

After graduation, he’d joined the Army, probably to get away from his violent home. Unfortunately, he couldn’t handle it, and went AWOL a few years later. Instead of turning him in, his mother let him live in her basement until he got caught.

After that, his life had been a series of misdemeanors and gateway crimes. His girlfriend had spilled everything to the police, explaining that all the information Jamie had on me he’d found in his brother’s house. Kevin had never told anyone about me or the baby. After his death, Jamie had gone through his things, looking for an explanation.

He’d found my pictures.

That was all it took for me to become the one he blamed. He fixated on me, telling his girlfriend that he was going to find Kevin’s baby and steal it back. He told her they would raise it together. It had been eleven years since I left pregnant, eleven years since the pictures were taken, but in Jamie’s mind, the baby was still a baby.

The snapshots from New York, the ones taken during various stages of my pregnancy and then after I’d had Bryant, were kept in a special drawer. Kevin had apparently taken them when he’d come to see me. I’ll never know why he took pictures from afar and never stopped to visit, but I’ll wonder that for the rest of my life. And I’ll wish that he’d reached out to me, so he could have seen his son’s beautiful face at least once.