She lay crumpled on the pool deck, bleeding. In Iraq his closest friends’ blood had been splattered all over him, and Adam had nearly died. That was nothing compared to the way his gut twisted at the sight of Whitney’s blood.

Next to her, Ryan Fordham lay flat on his back, blood gushing from a wound in his chest. His flat, unseeing eyes told Adam the man was dead.

“Whitney, Whitney.” He dropped to his knees and felt for a pulse. By some miracle she was still alive, but blood was seeping from a shot just above her waist. He prayed it hadn’t hit any vital organs.

“Ryan shot her,” cried Ashley. “I had to stop him before he fired again.”

With trembling fingers, Adam pulled his cell phone out of his pocket and dialed 911. Somehow he managed to give them the address and order an ambulance on the double.

“Hang in there, sweetheart,” he told Whitney as he examined the wound. He was afraid to move her in case it caused more bleeding. He applied pressure above the wound.

Jasper and Lexi circled the two bodies. One look told him the dogs had no clue how serious this was. “Get out of the way!” he yelled at them. Both dogs cowered. “Sit. Sit. Stay,” he said in a calmer voice.

He barely heard Ashley babbling about what happened. The gambling debt. The supposedly toxic land that was so valuable. Something about her long-lost father and money.

Adam didn’t give a rat’s ass. All that mattered was saving Whitney. He heard the wails of an ambulance and police cars coming closer and closer.

“Hurry, hurry,” he heard himself plead. He tried to think over the pulse thrumming in his temples, but there was nothing he could do except wait and pray. Her body was pathetically still, nearly lifeless, all color leached from her beautiful face.

“Aaah, aaahhh,” Whitney moaned, her eyes still closed.

“I love you, Whitney,” he said even though now was not the time to say it. He might never have another chance.

“A-a-ah-adam.” Whitney’s eyelids fluttered, then opened so slightly that he doubted she could see him.

“Shh. Don’t try to talk.”

“Ja-ja-jasper…ch-chip…neck.” Suddenly her eyes snapped shut.

“WE HEARD ABOUT IT ON television,” Holly told Adam. “We came right away. We knew you’d need us.”

All Adam could do was nod at Tyler and Holly. He wouldn’t need anybody or anything if Whitney didn’t survive.

They were sitting in the surgery waiting room. It had been more than two hours since the ambulance had sped away with Whitney. She’d been rushed immediately into surgery. A nurse had come out with one update: Whitney was still alive. The seconds had ticked by like days.

“I’m here. I’m here,” announced Trish Bowrather as she rushed into the waiting room with Rod Babcock. “Is she-”

“We don’t know anything yet,” Tyler told them when Adam couldn’t speak.

“What happened?” asked the attorney.

There was a long silence, then Adam heard himself begin to talk. “According to Ashley Fordham, Ryan tried to kill Whitney.”

“Lord have mercy. I warned her,” cried Trish, turning to Rod. The lawyer put his arm around her and pulled Trish close. “I warned Whitney, but she wouldn’t listen.”

“On TV they said Ryan Fordham had been shot and killed,” Tyler told everyone. “The police have arrested Ashley Fordham.”

Adam slowly nodded. “I guess Ashley killed him. There was a scuffle or something. I don’t know the details.”

“Whitney wasn’t able to tell you anything?” asked Holly.

“No. She only rallied for a moment.” He turned to Trish. “All she could think about was the dogs. She was worried about Jasper.”

“Just like Whitney,” Trish replied, then hesitated a moment. “She didn’t mention Lexi? That’s strange.”

“She could barely utter a syllable,” Adam told her. He lovingly recalled her last words. Jasper, chip, neck.

Holy shit!

She’d been trying to tell him something.

WHITNEY STRAINED TO LIFT HEAVY eyelids crusted with sand. Light. She finally glimpsed a single ray of light, but she seemed to be looking at the world through gauze.

“Whitney,” someone called to her from very far away.

Adam hovered over her with his arm around…Miranda. Whitney tried to speak but her parched tongue could barely move. A white-hot bolt of pain lanced up her side, as if someone were twisting a shard of glass.

Where was she? What had happened? She struggled to remember. She saw the bank of frightening-looking machines with tubes attached to her body.

“Can you hear me, sweetheart?” Adam asked, his hand on her shoulder.

She parted her lips to respond. In a flash the room morphed into darkness and she was scrambling out of the pool again. Ryan was going to shoot Ashley if she didn’t do something-fast. In freeze-frames her brain replayed the struggle over the gun.

“A-ash…ley?” she managed to say through a miasma of pain and confusion.

“She’s all right,” Adam assured her. “She got the gun away from Ryan and shot him.” There was a change in the pressure of his hand on her shoulder. “He’s dead.”

Ryan-dead? Her muddled brain was too traumatized to process the information. The light slowly seeped away until she was all alone in the dark again.

“Whitney…Whitney.”

The myriad machines twisted and garbled her name. She thought she heard it again but couldn’t be sure. She seemed to be floating high above the earth on clouds like feather beds. She willed her eyes to open and they reluctantly obeyed. She sensed time had passed. It could have been minutes, hours or even days.

The room was dark now, the only light glowing from the armada of machines that gurgled and beeped. In the next breath, she realized the drip-drip-drip she heard was an IV pumping life-giving fluids into her body. Woozy, she struggled to remember what had happened to her.

A face emerged from the shadows. “Hey, are you awake?”

“Adam?” She realized her left side ached so much she could barely speak. “Don’t leave me.”

“I won’t.” He brushed his lips to her forehead. “I love you. I haven’t left your side.”

“You love me?” she found the strength to whisper.

“You bet I love you.” He bent over and gently kissed her cheek. “I should have told you before-before I came damn close to losing you.”

Those all important words-I love you-made her giddily happy despite the pain. The knowledge made her aware of the fracture deep in her soul. This man had touched her in a way no one else ever had. He made her accept how much she longed for love and trust.

When she’d been in the pool and realized Ryan had gone berserk, she’d fervently wished she’d told Adam how she felt. Now she had a second chance.

“I love you, too.”

“You had me scared to death. I thought I was going to lose you.”

She mustered the strength to give him a little smile. Memories eclipsed by drugs and pain slowly floated to the surface as the blurry watercolor softness of drugs lifted a little. “Ashley’s all right? Did you tell me that or did I dream it?”

His warm hand cradled hers. “You didn’t dream it. Ashley went home with her father to Bakersfield. At first, the police arrested her, thinking she’d shot both of you in some lovers’ triangle.”

“Oh, no. She-”

“I know, I know. She was trying to help you. The police corroborated Ashley’s story very quickly. Forensics confirmed Ryan had fired the gun. After he shot you, Ashley grabbed the gun and killed him. The police know it was self-defense.”

“Ryan was a very sick man. I never realized.”

“Neither did Ashley.”

“I…feel bad for her. She could have run away or something but she returned and tried to save me.”

“Don’t worry about her. I’m sure she’ll be upset for a while but she’s reunited with her father. And Preston Block cares about her-a lot. She won’t be alone. I’m positive she’s going to be fine.”