Chapter 36
THIRTY-SIX
Maria had jumped back after striking the man.
He cried out and jolted backward. His gun fell from his hand and dropped to the floor.
With it, the balance of power shifted to her.
She knew the charge from the paddles wasn’t likely to kill him but would shock him enough to give her a chance to assume control.
It might cause him to lose consciousness.
It only took him a few moments to recover.
He came at her, nostrils flaring. “You stupid bitch!”
She reached back and charged the paddles and stepped toward him again.
He jumped out of the way, this time foreseeing her plan. He swatted out, and she let go of the paddles. Their cords allowed them to reach the floor, and it drew her gaze down.
The gun…
She rushed for the weapon, and he must have had the same idea because he went for the gun at the same time. Their heads bumped and sent them both backward from the hit. It only stunned them for a second, though, and they were both back in a race to assume control of the gun.
Her fingers danced over the handle. She reached out farther, her fingertips searching for the edge to get a firm hold. Just as she was about there, she heard it. The charge of the defibrillator.
There was only one reason that she’d been able to get so close to the gun.
He’d allowed her to. The man was getting ready to repay her “kindness.” She saw the shadow of him before the actual man himself.
If she got shocked by the machine, she was likely to live, but it would probably kill her baby.
He was blocking her path to the gun now.
She rolled to the left, putting even more distance between herself and the weapon.
He trailed her as she squirmed across the floor.
There was nowhere for her to go but into a corner.
But if she was down here, she was safer.
Instinct had her wanting to cocoon, to make herself small.
Less of a target. She tucked into the corner, drawing her knees to her chest. He wrestled with her, trying to expose her chest. While he might have shot the man she loved, there was no way she’d let him hurt the baby inside of her.
She pushed out her legs as hard and as fast as she could, aiming as high on his body as she could.
Her kick impacted him in the crotch, causing him to scream, and sent him stumbling backward.
But the strike didn’t set him back for long.
He came at her again. The paddles still very much a threat.
She dropped lower, crawling across the floor toward the gun. But it was gone.
Where the…
“Leave her alone, you shit!” Gail was back on her feet, swaying, the gun in her hand.
The man roared, “I’m getting sick of you two!”
“The feeling’s mutual.” Maria grabbed the defibrillator itself. Its weight of less than twenty pounds made that possible, while it should also be enough to cause some damage if wielded just right.
He was mid-turn when she raised it and smashed it into the side of his head.
One yelp, and he was a heap on the floor.
The cords on the paddles had them springing back toward the unit.
Maria stood there in silence, as did Gail across the room. The only noise was their deep breathing and the hum of the heart monitor tracking Phoebe’s heart rate.
“You saved my baby.” Gail took a step toward the bed and swooned, reaching for the rails with her free hand.
“Be careful.” Maria jogged to her side to steady her balance and took the gun from her hand. She set it in the waistband of her pants. “You might have a concussion from your fall. Let me see your eyes.”
Gail faced her, and Maria did a brief test.
“You’re going to be fine,” Maria told her and pocketed her penlight. “But you took a nasty fall.”
Gail touched her jaw. “Not to mention that man smacked my jaw.”
“Okay, but it’s not broken or there’s no way you could stomach talking right now. You will be all right.”
“He shot your baby’s father.”
Maria met Gail’s gaze, not sure what her goal had been in making that declaration. The effect had Maria running cold. “And I will get to him, but first we need to do something with him so he’s no longer a threat.” She nudged her head toward the gunman.
“He’s not dead?” Gail whimpered.
His chest was still rising and falling. “He’s just out cold.” Not that she trusted he’d stay down for long.
Gail rubbed her arms as she stared at him. “But he can’t hurt us anymore.”
Maria could see that Gail was in shock, likely still reeling from her fall. Even Maria was uneasy having been terrorized by this man. To see him inert was almost difficult for her mind to accept. Still a voice of caution told her she had to snap out of it. “We need to move him.”
Gail looked at her, rubbing her throat. “Move him? Move him where?”
It was a good question, but Maria had one idea. “There’s a storage closet down the hall. It locks from the outside.”
Gail licked her lips. “So if he, uh, comes to then he can’t get out?”
There was a release latch inside if one knew where to look. Maria wasn’t going to obsess about that right now. Besides, they’d have his gun. “Just help me, Gail, please!” She desperately wanted to get this man dealt with so she could get back to Jordon.
Both went over to the man, and they each hooked an arm under one of his and tugged. The man barely budged.
“He’s so heavy,” Gail said, straightening out, and she put a hand to her forehead.
Maria studied the woman. She was still recovering from her fall, and her left cheek and eye where she was struck were swollen and turning purple.
There was no way she could physically drag this man down the hall.
Maria pressed the gun back into Gail’s palm.
“If he moves…” She didn’t want to put the rest into words as if that made her thoughts more an intention and a sin.
Gail licked her lips and nodded. “I know what to do.”
“I’m going to find a wheelchair to bring back here. We’ll load him on it, and use it to get him to the storage room.”
Maria left the room without looking back. Her heart was pulling her toward Jordon, and she couldn’t resist checking on him. She was going toward the nurses’ station that way anyhow.
“J,” she said, sinking down to the floor at his side.
He groaned, and his eyelashes fluttered. “My sweetheart,” he said.
Hot tears blazed trails down her cheeks.
“You must hang in there, okay? You will be all right.” You have to be!
She checked him over, and the external bleeding had been staunched.
But she remained concerned about internal damage, possible bleeding, and infection.
His face was pale. “I’ll get you help soon.
I swear I will.” She went to get up, but he grabbed her arm, stopping her.
“In my pants pocket… get it. I want you to have it.”
She did as he requested and found a small box. Her heart fluttered. “What is this?”
“My great-great-grandmother’s ring. Will you…” Jordon winced. “Marry me?”
She opened the lid. A gold band with a marquise-shaped diamond.
Fresh tears spilled down Maria’s cheeks.
She’d been prepared to reason with him, assuming his text was sent out of desperation, as if he expected he would die today.
But he had the ring in his pocket. He’d come to work prepared.
Was he intending to ask her today anyhow, maybe after work?
Jordon squeezed her leg, and she took the ring from the box and slipped it on her ring finger.
“Yes, Jordon Maddox, I will be your wife.” She leaned over and kissed him.
“I’m sorry, though, I must go. But I’ll be quick.
” She tapped another kiss to his lips, but forced herself to move before her emotions paralyzed her any further.
She was torn between her charge, that of Gail and Phoebe Chapman, and the man she loved.
But as long as the gunman was breathing, he remained a threat.
He’d have come with friends too, who might want revenge.
She ran toward the first wheelchair she could see and marched with it down the hall to Phoebe’s room. Her heart was pounding as she rounded the doorway. Her fears had her imagining the man was back on his feet and that he’d overpowered Gail and held the gun again.
Maria entered the room. The man was still on the floor where he was when she’d left.
Gail ran over to Maria, and the two of them worked to hoist the man’s dead weight off the floor into the wheelchair.
It was intensive labor, and even Maria was heaving for breath.
Her job as a nurse had made her strong, conditioning her to lift a patient’s weight.
She suspected this scenario had more to do with the risk and her innate fears.
Jordon was so pale, and he was drifting.
She spun the ring on her finger. Was she going to get the chance to walk down the aisle and marry the man she loved?
Or was the bright future they had planned going to combust to ash?