Chapter 27
Jules snapped her gaze toward the front hall when she heard the door open and close. “Cal, is that you?”
Jonathon rounded the corner into the living room and flashed a sheepish grin. “Sorry. Just me.”
Jules wilted back against the couch. “Oh. Hi.”
Kelly rose from her chair and met her father with a hug. “Cal left on a department-related errand a good while ago. He’s late returning, and we haven’t had an update in an hour or so.”
“Is there reason to be worried?” Jonathon asked, emptying his pockets onto the end of a decorative table.
“He tried to convince me there wasn’t, but… I’m not sure.” Jules twisted her fingers in the hem of her shirt and sighed.
“He’ll call soon. Cal’s the conscientious sort,” Jonathon said with a wink as he started for the kitchen.
Jules forced a smile for the doctor’s attempt to allay her fears.
“Dad,” Kelly called as her father left the room, “you know if you don’t put keys on your dresser, you won’t be able to find them later.”
Jonathon returned, giving his daughter a wry look. “You sound like Cal. Since when did you two become the parents?”
She shrugged. “You know I’m right. You lose your keys on a regular basis.”
With a noncommittal growl, Dr. Colton rolled his eyes, picked up his keys again and jammed them back in his pocket.
“If you’re hungry, there’s a little pizza on the counter and cobbler by the stove,” Kelly said to her father’s retreating back.
Jonathon peeked around the corner again, his eyes bright. “Cherry cobbler?”
“Yep.”
The jangle of a phone ringing spilled into the living room, and Jules heard Jonathon groan. “Hello? Yeah, what’s happened?”
His voice faded as he moved into the kitchen, and Jules checked her own phone for the time. For missed texts. For any sign that Cal had checked in. Nothing.
“Dad’s right,” Kelly said. “I’m sure Cal will be home or he’ll call soon. He’s not one to leave you hanging. You know. First born, hyper responsible. All that jazz. That’s my big brother.”
Jules stroked Joy’s back, the kitten having been curled up asleep on the couch next to her for the last ten minutes. “That’s good to know. It’s the picture I’ve been drawing of him. Reliable. Honest. Trustworthy.”
Great kisser. Hot body. Gentle hands, she added silently.
“He’s one of the good guys, Jules. I know I’ve said it before, but…because I really like you, too, I want you to know he is g—”
“Well,” Jonathon said, reappearing at the living room door. “I’m headed back to the hospital. No rest for the weary.”
“Dad!” Kelly braced her hands on her hips, clearly disgruntled. “Let one of the other doctors handle…whatever it is. You need to eat and…when was the last time you slept?”
Jonathon glanced away, rubbing the five o’clock shadow on his cheek.
When he returned his gaze to Kelly, his expression was stark.
“I want to be there myself. I…” He sighed and cut a frown toward Jules that sent a ripple of alarm through her.
“That was Ryan… Dr. Palmer. There was a shooting at the police station.”
Jules tensed, her heart slowing.
Kelly gasped. “What!”
“They’re bringing in several people with injuries. At least one law enforcement officer has been shot,” Jonathon said. “I want to be on hand, if one of your brothers…”
Jules swung her feet to the floor and scooted to the edge of the couch. “I want to go, too.”
“We don’t know that it’s Cal…” Kelly said, though her eyes said she was as panicked as Jules felt. “I think we should wait here until…”
At that moment, headlights panned across the front window, and Kelly rushed to look out. “It’s Cal! Oh, thank God!”
Jules clambered to her feet, ignoring the dizzy spin of her head as she hurried to meet Cal at the door.
She fell into his arms as he entered the foyer, a haggard look dimming his typically upbeat expression.
Without saying anything, she clung to him, and he wordlessly hugged her back, burying his face in the curve of her neck.
“Callum?” Jonathon said finally. “Can you tell us what happened? I had a call from the hospital about a shooting. Multiple injuries. I’m headed there now.”
“Have you talked to Wyatt? To Dylan? Are they okay?” Kelly asked, her voice trembling.
Cal stepped back from Jules and nodded to his sister. “Dylan wasn’t there. Wyatt will be fine. He has a small cut on his arm. He thinks he hit the corner of a metal desk as he took cover.”
Jules swallowed hard. “Took cover. From gunfire. There was a shooting, wasn’t there?”
His face remained inscrutable, though she sensed something beyond the shooting was troubling him. “Cal?”
Dr. Colton clapped a hand on Cal’s shoulder as he moved past him to the door. “I’m glad to see you’re unhurt, son. I need to go now and take care of those that are.”
Kelly cleared her throat and edged toward the door. “I’ll go, too… Since you’re here to keep her company, and…well, I don’t want to be a third wheel.”
Jules rallied to tell Kelly goodbye and thank her for the companionship, the food, her steadying influence as she waited. When they were alone, Jules faced Cal and drew a breath for courage. “Tell me. Whatever it is you’re not saying, just…please tell me.”
Nodding, he took her hand and led her into the living room. He gave Joy a cursory glance before moving to the other end of the sofa and pulling Jules down beside him. “Wyatt and the drug task force arrested Chase Hamilton earlier today.”
She straightened her back, and hope filled her chest. “They did? Finally?”
But Cal didn’t look happy about the news, and immediately her chest squeezed again. Shooting at the police station…
Acid pooled in her gut as she shifted to face him more fully. “The shooting. Was that him? He got away, didn’t he?”
Cal shook his head. “No. He didn’t get away. He…was shot.”
Jules took a beat to process this new tidbit of information.
“The task force wanted his arrest for leverage to get him to flip on higher-ups in the drug ring. They were working on a plea deal—”
“Damn it!” Jules exploded. “So he gets off again?”
“Jules…”
“What is it going to take to get this guy—”
“Jules, he’s dead.” Cal’s hands tightened on her arms, his keen blue eyes drilling into her. “He was killed by the shooter at the station when we tried to move him to a holding cell at the county facility.”
A strange buzzing filled her ears as she replayed what he’d said in her head. “Dead? Hamilton is dead?”
He nodded.
The tension inside her uncoiled a bit. “Well, then that’s good news, isn’t it? I mean, I’d rather he was incarcerated for the rest of his life rather than being killed. I’m not a monster. But…if he’s dead, he can’t bother Abby anymore, either. Or Zoey. Or any other woman.”
His cheek twitched. “Well, yeah. There’s that. But…he never actually gave the task force any names. His lawyer convinced everyone to put the negotiations and interrogation on hold because of the late hour.”
She wanted to quiz him further about Hamilton and what it meant going forward, but she could see shadows in his eyes. “Cal? There’s something else. Isn’t there? You’re so…subdued. Distracted.”
He nodded and swallowed hard, his Adam’s apple dipping.
“What…?”
“Matti was at the police station when the shooting happened.” He drew an unsteady breath. “She was in the lobby with a little boy she was moving to foster care, and—” His voice cracked, and he squeezed his eyes shut.
“Oh, no! Was she hurt?” She grabbed his sleeve, her chest constricting with dread.
He shook his head. “But the little boy was. Not seriously, but…”
She’d never seen him this upset. “Cal?”
“Sorry, I just… It was so unnerving. Seeing her holding that bleeding child. Knowing my sister could have been the one hurt—or worse—in that hail of bullets.”
“Thank God she wasn’t.” She sat beside him and wrapped her arms around him, trying to comfort him.
“I mean Wyatt, Dylan and I know the risks associated with our job. Even Aiden, for different reasons. We’ve kind of accepted that one of us could get injured in the line of duty, but…damn it. Not my baby sister. Not Matti. She and Kelly are…”
“Don’t you dare say something sexist and spoil my image of you, Callum Colton,” she said in a mock chiding tone.
He cut a glance at her and blinked as if needing a moment to let her jibe register.
“It sounded like you were winding up to call your sisters fragile or vulnerable or delicate or some sexist trash like that.” She stroked the side of his face and gave him a wry grin to soften her words.
His brow wrinkled, and he snorted a humorless laugh.
“No. Not my sisters. They’re two of the strongest and bravest women I know.
I was going to say they’re—” he pressed a hand to his chest “—special to me. I’ve always tried to look out for them, especially when we were younger.
Our dad wasn’t always there when he should have been, and I tried to… fill in the gaps.”
She pulled a grin. “Hyper responsible.”
“Hmm?”
“That’s what Kelly called you earlier tonight. Classic firstborn.”
He acknowledged her reply with a sad smile before slumping back against the sofa cushions, the troubled look returning to his eyes.
After a moment, her own nurturing and tenderhearted instincts nudged her, so she asked, “How badly was the little boy hurt?”
He turned up one hand in an I-don’t-know gesture.
“I’m waiting on a report from Matti. She went with him to the emergency room.
” He gave her a quick side glance before staring straight ahead.
“Sam, the little boy, was already so scared, having been left alone in a motel room and brought to the police station, surrounded by strangers. The shooting was the last straw for him.” The pain in his eyes said he was seeing the scene again, replaying the horror in his mind.
“He was…almost catatonic. Traumatized by it all.”
She cuddled closer to him, rubbing his arm as if he were the traumatized boy. “Having been caught in a shooting myself, I can understand that. Poor little guy.”
“If that weren’t enough,” he said and grimaced, “Officer Rutledge, a guy with a wife and two kids, caught a bullet in the chest as well. He’s alive but in serious condition. Last word I had was they were taking him into surgery.”
“Oh, no! That’s terrible!”
He closed his eyes and leaned his head back. She felt a small shudder pass through him, and her heart twisted.
“Tonight sucked,” he said in a low voice.
“Sounds like it. I’m so sorry.” She squeezed his arm, then slid her hand down to lace her fingers with his. “I wish I could do something to help.”
He rolled his head toward her. “You would?”
She grunted and gaped at him in dismay. “What? Why would you ask that? I care about people!”
Arching an eyebrow, he scoffed. “And yet with me you’re the sarcasm queen.”
“I’m not that bad!” But even as she defended herself, compunction gnawed at her conscience.
When she opened her mouth to justify her sarcasm, the corner of his mouth twitched, and he leaned in to kiss her. “There she is, the woman I love to spar with.”
“So you don’t really think I’m…a grump?”
His grin spread. “Well, I might not go that far.”
“Ugh!” She frowned and play swatted at him, thankful that his mood had lifted enough to tease with her.
“What I would say is—” he grew serious again, and his fingers plowed into her hair to cradle the back of her head “—I’m learning more and more that your crusty shell protects a soft heart, a kind and caring soul that I find very attractive.”
Her pulse fluttered as his attention dropped to her mouth, his pupils expanding like a cat’s when it spied prey.
This time, she leaned in to kiss him rather than wait for him to make the move.
She heard the swoosh of blood past her ears as her head grew muzzy and light.
The fevered spike in her pulse fed her, encouraged her, shouted down the persistent squawk in her mind that warned her not to get tangled up with a man, not to risk the heartache.
Cal’s kiss deepened, and she felt the tension in his body as she held him.
Was his ardor rooted in desire for her or just a release of the stress that had haunted him tonight?
And did it matter? He’d supported her through scary times in recent days.
She could return the favor. Especially if the favor meant she could scratch an itch without investing too much of herself.
The hotter the kisses grew, the louder the justifications shouted in her brain.
A hunger roared to life inside her that only Cal could satisfy.
Finally, she rose long enough to kneel on the couch, straddling his lap.
Capturing his face between her palms, she pushed him back against the pillows and lost herself in his kiss.
His arms circled her, and he drew her closer, a small moan slipping from his throat as he drew on her mouth.
Amid the rush of sensation, the heady swirl of pleasure that heated her blood, Jules became aware of a wholly different feeling that swelled in her core and demanded attention.
Kissing Cal Colton didn’t just feel good, it felt…
right. Being held by him, sinking into him, being the one to console him at the end of a terrible day…
fit. As if she’d been waiting her whole life for a missing piece of her soul, Cal was comfortable, familiar.
The electron she needed to fill her valence shell.
Wow. That was…awful. A laugh tripped from her that sounded more like a cough. She was in deep if she was creating tortured chemistry analogies like that. Clearly she was no poet with the gift of romantic words.
“Oh, man,” he said, his brow knitting as he pulled away. “I forgot about your head injury. Are you all right?”
She wrinkled her nose. “I’m fine. I wish I could blame my head injury for what I just thought.”
“Care to share?”
“No. I’d like to preserve what little respect you have for me.”
He tugged her close again. “Oh, but I have quite a bit of respect for you, beautiful. Respect and desire. Which is my way of saying I want to make love to you, but the decision is yours.”