Chapter 20
Chapter
Twenty
At Chelsea’s words, he and Rocco’s SEAL team sprang into action.
Josiah closed the last of the distance between himself and Chelsea, Gumby and Phantom moved in closer to Maple, and Rocco moved around them to block one side of the maze, while Ace moved back a little further down the way they’d come to block the other.
“Are you sure?” he asked Chelsea.
“That Desiree was shot? Absolutely. Don’t be mad, but I saw Bridget alone out here and I had to come to her, she’s just a little girl.
I was going to take her somewhere to hide, but then Desiree came.
She was armed. I was talking her down as best I could to buy time.
When she lowered the weapon, I told Bridget to run, and I was going to tackle her. ”
“You were going to do what?” he demanded, his voice low and dangerous as a new bout of fear flooded his system.
One of her slim hands stroked his arm. “It’s okay, Josiah. A shot went out, and for one second I thought I was hit, but it was Maple shooting Desiree. I saw her go down. Maple did too. Ask her. I thought Desiree was dead. If I’d realized she wasn't, I would have told you immediately.”
“I believe you, Chels,” he assured her. He was still furious she’d put herself in danger to go after Desiree Tilly’s daughter, knowing the woman would also be looking for the child, but in the end, he could hardly ask Chelsea to stop being who she was.
She was a strong woman who knew what she wanted, who cared for others, who looked for good in everyone around her. It was those exact qualities that made him fall in love with her, so he really couldn’t be angry at her for just doing what Chelsea did.
The problem was, a dangerous woman was still out there.
As long as Desiree Tilly was free, this would never really be over.
“We need to lock down this place, we can't let her escape,” he said to Rocco, who nodded his agreement.
“Let’s get Chelsea and Maple back to the house, then we can search for Desiree,” Gumby said.
“And Bridget. She’s out here, too,” Chelsea reminded them all.
“Josiah, she’s scared. Not just of what's happening, the shooting, and everything. Desiree told her you guys are bad men. I tried to convince her it wasn't true, but she won't just be scared of you guys, she’s scared of her mom, too. She heard Desiree ranting at me, I don’t know who she’s going to trust right now. ”
Actually, they all knew one person the little girl would trust.
Chelsea.
But he couldn’t allow her to remain out there after she’d almost been shot by two different women in the space of thirty minutes. Chelsea couldn’t die. Damn, even the thought of her hurt had him breaking out into a cold sweat.
“I’ll tell her I'm your husband,” he said to Chelsea before she could offer to help search for the missing child and the girl’s deranged mother.
For a second, he was sure she was going to argue, but then she nodded. “That should work.
“Gumby and I will get Chelsea and Maple to the house,” Phantom said, and Josiah had to force himself not to argue.
As badly as he didn't want to leave Chelsea’s side, he had the best chance of gaining the little girl’s trust when they found her.
“Wait.” He grabbed Chelsea when she went to brush past him. This might just be the hardest thing he’d ever have to do in his life, but he wasn't going to allow his girl to walk out there without the best protection he could give her.
“What?” Chelsea asked.
Shoving his weapon into her hands, he grabbed the hem of his T-shirt and yanked it up and over his head. When he reached for the straps of his Kevlar vest, she gasped, her hands darting out to cover his, trying to stop him.
“You don’t have to do that,” she whispered, understanding better than anyone here what this would cost him.
The thing was, though, he did have to do this.
More than that, he wanted to do this. No matter how much the idea of taking off his vest terrified him beyond words, the thought of losing Chelsea scared him more.
Since he wasn't sure he could talk without his voice trembling, Josiah just stripped off the vest, then tugged it over Chelsea’s head.
It was a little big for her, but it would still do the job, affording her more protection as she left the relative safety of the maze for the large expanse of garden she’d have to cross to get to the house.
“Josiah,” she whispered his name, her voice heavy with emotion. “Thank you.”
Those words ran deeper than just a thanks for the vest. She was thanking him for fighting against his past, for trying to beat his demons, for giving her a chance.
Nodding in acknowledgment, he leaned in, touched his forehead to hers, and then slipped his T-shirt back on.
There was no coming back from this, no pretending that he hadn't made this sacrifice because he was prioritizing her over himself, over his past, over his fears and guilt and anger.
Giving her the place in his life she always should have had because he finally accepted that not having Chelsea was worse than being scared of losing her.
“I love you,” she murmured, pushing up onto tiptoes to press a kiss to the corner of his mouth as she pushed his weapon back into his hands.
She started toward Phantom and Gumby, and he had to clench his fingers around the cold steel of his weapon to stop himself from reaching for her. There would be time later to talk things through when there wasn’t a scared child, and a desperate criminal mastermind hiding in the maze.
“Chelsea!” A little voice called out at the same time a small child wriggled out from under the hedges and bolted toward Chelsea.
“Bridget.” Chelsea breathed in relief as she took a step toward the girl.
“She’s all I have left, no one is taking her from me.
You keep trying. You keep trying to stop me, to shut down what I’ve built, but doing that will kill my baby girl.
I tried to make you stop, I tried to make you back off, I warned you, and when you kept coming after me, I knew you all had to die.
Everyone who gets in the way of me saving my daughter’s life has to be punished, they have to die,” another voice screamed, as a figure barreled through the hedges.
Reaching for the child, Chelsea shoved Bridget behind her right as the shot rang out.
As Chelsea cried out in pain, Josiah was already flinging himself toward her.
With the second shot came a wave of white-hot agony blasting through his body.
More shots tore through the night. Someone was sobbing, someone was screaming, all he cared about was getting to Chelsea.
He had to know that she was okay.
Ignoring the fiery pain pulsing inside him, Josiah crawled the short distance to where Chelsea lay on her back. Her eyes were open, staring up at the sky, and for a second, he thought it was too late.
She was dead.
He’d already lost her.
But then she took in a ragged breath, and his fingers began to skim her body in search of the injury.
A hole in the Kevlar right above her heart told him exactly how close to losing her he’d come.
If she hadn't been wearing the body armor, she’d be dead.
No ifs, ands, or buts about it.
Dead.
That bullet would have pierced her heart instead of being stopped by Kevlar, and he would have lost her.
His decision to prioritize light over darkness had saved her life.
Dizzy with relief, he sank down onto the ground beside her, vaguely aware of voices shouting around him. What they were saying didn't matter, the only thing that did was that Chelsea was alive.
A muffled grunt of pain caught his attention, and he turned his head to see Chelsea struggling to sit up, a man beside her rubbing a hand over his jaw.
Not any man.
Cole “Rex” Kingston.
Apparently, the SEAL had shown up just in time to get a blow in from a desperate Chelsea.
“Tried to keep you out of the thick of things, dude, so you didn't go home with yet another injury,” Mark “Bubba” Wright snickered, but there was a tenseness to his tone.
“Sorry, but I have to get to him,” Chelsea said, her tone heavy with despair.
“You need to stay still, Chelsea, you were just shot,” Rex reminded her.
“Don’t care,” she wheezed. “He saved my life.”
With a small sigh, Rex looped his arm around her shoulders and helped her move so she was on her knees beside him. Josiah tried to move, too, but his body refused to cooperate.
“Why did you do that?” Chelsea whispered as her gentle fingers stroked along his cheek.
“Because I couldn’t lose you,” he answered simply.
“But I don’t want to lose you,” she shot back.
Badly as he wanted to assure her that she wasn't going to lose him, that he’d just taken a pretty major leap to leaving the past in the past and looking to the future, the heaviness weighing down upon him told him he might not have much choice in the matter.
If this was it, if he was about to die, then he couldn’t leave this world without uttering the most important words he’d ever speak.
“Had to save you, Chels, because I love you,” he murmured before he lost his battle with consciousness and was whisked away into an all-consuming darkness.
May 18th
2:54 P.M.
Pain thudded through her chest with every breath she took.
Chelsea knew it wasn't all because of the broken ribs.
Some of it was the ache in her heart.
For years, she had been dreaming of hearing Josiah say those words to her.
For years, she had known the chances of him ever reciprocating her feelings were virtually non-existent.
For years, she’d endured the pity of her friends as they watched her, unable to let go of the unrequited love she had for a man that most would look at and likely find unlovable.
Now he’d finally said those words she’d hardly dared to hope for, but it was nothing like she’d imagined it would be.
If Josiah had ever fallen for her, she thought that everything would be perfect. All her dreams would have come true, and after telling her he loved her, he would have whisked her up into his arms and carried her to bed, where he would have made love to her for hours.