Chasing Bliss

Chapter Nineteen

“Holy shit balls, Nate. Think about it. Atlanto-occipital dislocation. Do you have any idea how few physicians see that in a lifetime? It’s insanely rare. And who sees it? This guy. Right here in Bliss, Colorado. I know I complain about the autopsies but this makes them all worthwhile.”

Caleb’s voice roused Gemma from her dreams. Her dreams where Jesse was alive and Cade didn’t run. She kept her eyes shut, hoping to go back there.

“Caleb, I don’t even know what that Atlanto thing is. Henry said the guy fell.”

Caleb huffed. “You think the dude fell and internally decapitated himself? Seriously? Henry is lying. This is the kind of thing that happens when man meets bus or man meets ridiculously well-trained killer. I don’t think Henry qualifies as mass transit.”

Patrick was dead. Thank god.

“Leave him be, man.”

Caleb kept at it. “Don’t you want to know? I could call my brother. He’s got serious connections. Henry isn’t some pacifist. He’s trained. He’s either mafia or more likely CIA. Henry fucking Flanders is ex-CIA. Come on, don’t you want to know?”

Gemma forced her eyes open. Henry had helped her, risking his relationship with his wife. She seriously doubted Nell knew a thing about Henry’s past. And it should stay that way. Bliss was a place for second chances. She should know. “Let him be. Henry has his secrets. Let him keep them.”

Caleb frowned, striding to her, checking all the monitors hooked up to her body. “Gemma, you’re in the hospital.”

Yeah, the stark white all around her and the fact that it was twenty degrees below comfortable told her that. She groaned. “I can’t afford the hospital.”

Caleb smiled, a rarity. “Oh, this particular stay is all paid up, Gemma. Look around.”

Her head throbbed, but she forced herself to sit up. Her room was filled with flowers. Lilies and roses and gardenias and pansies and daisies. It was like someone had bought out a florist. “What the hell?”

Caleb busied himself doing all the doctor stuff he seemed to deeply enjoy. He took her blood pressure.

Nate passed her several cards. “Nell figured it all out. She’s been on the news networks telling everyone that Senator Allen Cameron bribed an EPA official and then paid to have you killed. It’s all over the news. Cameron’s had to pull out of the race. There’s going to be an inquest and everyone is talking about jail time for the senator and several members of his team.”

Gemma shook her head. “And all this is from the networks?”

“No,” Nate said. “This is all courtesy of two men from Texas. Apparently Senator Cameron has a couple of estranged children. They don’t exactly love the guy. These are from a man named Jack Barnes and his half brother, Lucas Cameron, who changed his name to O’Malley when he got married.”

She looked at one of the notes. It was written in a blunt, masculine hand and thanked her for doing the one thing he hadn’t been able to do—“take the old goat down.” He invited her to his ranch in someplace called Willow Fork. The note from Lucas O’Malley included a job offer from a firm in Dallas.

“They’re really grateful,” Nate said. “And, Gemma, Barnes paid your hospital bills, all of them. And Jesse’s.”

Jesse was alive? Tears pricked her eyes. “Jesse?”

Caleb gave her hand a reassuring squeeze. Apparently getting to view and catalog an internal decapitation helped with his bedside manner. “It looked worse than it was, Gemma. He was lucky. No serious damage. I’m keeping the both of you here just for observation. And because Barnes has a really big wallet.”

He was okay. She took a deep breath, tears threatening to overtake her. Jesse was alive.

Nate pointed to the bed next to hers. “He’s been here the whole time. Your mom and Naomi just took him out for some fresh air. He wouldn’t leave until Caleb promised him you would be alive when he came back. He’s a little paranoid.”

The door opened and Jesse’s smiling face came into view. He was in a wheelchair being pushed by her mom.

“You’re awake. Baby, you have no idea how happy I am to see you.” He motioned for her mom to stop and got to his feet.

Her heart soared. “Should you be walking?”

Caleb gave her a smile. “He’s good, Gemma. After a week or so he won’t even notice he was injured. He lost some blood and a tiny section of his liver. But don’t worry. That grows back. Seriously, as bullets go, he took a good one. He won’t even have a big scar. I was able to use the robot.”

Jesse shuffled her way, his eyes gleaming. “I wouldn’t miss my wedding day, baby.”

Her mom and Jesse and Naomi surrounded her with love. She accepted it all. But something was missing. She looked up at Jesse. “Is Cade gone?”

He sighed and sat down on the bed beside her. “Baby, he saved you. I’ll tell you the whole story, but as to whether or not he’s staying, I don’t know.”

Her mom smoothed back her hair. “He came in with you. He stayed here all night long, sitting right there and holding your hand.”

Naomi frowned. “But this morning after Caleb assured him you were both okay, he had me take him to that bar. He said he had something to do. I haven’t seen him since.”

Jesse put an arm around her. “Baby, it’s going to be okay. If he leaves, that’s on him. We’ll be just fine. So this Lucas guy offered you a job. Does that mean we’re moving to Dallas?”

She couldn’t even conceive of moving. This was her home. Patrick was wrong. She did belong here. “Nope. I don’t want to move. And I heard a rumor that in a month or so, my health benefits should kick in and I won’t need rich guys to rush in and save me.”

Nate smiled. “Uhm, I wouldn’t say that. They’re really not that great. But I’m happy to hear I don’t need another office manager. You don’t have any other crazy stalker person in your past, do you?”

She couldn’t say that with any real promise. “Hopefully not. And I might have to go part time because I’m getting my license to practice in Colorado and then I’m going to challenge the county ordinance.”

“Thereby giving the mayor a heart attack. Nice, Gemma,” Caleb said.

One by one they all left and others took their places. The whole town came out to say hello.

She was surrounded by friends and loved ones. But the one she needed to see didn’t walk through her door.

Late that night, she carefully cuddled against Jesse and slept and dreamed of a world where Cade didn’t leave.

Cade stood outside the door and wondered why he was so damn nervous. They were just beyond the door. He’d spent two days getting everything ready and now the fact that he’d only talked to Gemma on the phone really hit him.

He’d known she was okay. He’d even talked to the doc to make sure everything would be fine.

He’d wanted everything to be perfect when he saw Gemma again. But now he wondered if he hadn’t screwed up. What if she didn’t like what he’d done? What if she was pissed that he hadn’t stayed here with her?

Just for a second he hesitated, falling back into old habits. But he was done with that. If she was pissed, she could yell at him and he would take it. The one thing he wouldn’t do was let her go.

He pushed through the door, and his heart swelled as he saw Gemma buttoning up Jesse’s shirt. He was grumbling something about being able to do it himself, but Cade noticed he wasn’t trying too hard.

Gemma’s eyes came up. “Cade.”

Jesse turned, too, his eyes a little harder. “You came back.”

“I never left.”

Jesse stood. “She’s been in the hospital for two days and you’ve only been to see her once.”

Yep. He’d fucked up. And he’d been evasive about why he wasn’t around. He’d wanted to make it a surprise.

“That’s not true.” Gemma turned to him. “He’s come in the middle of the night. My mom told me he came that first night, but left before I woke up, and then I seem to remember having a little dream last night. It wasn’t a dream was it?”

She’d woken up, groggy and so tired she couldn’t stand it. He’d been sitting there watching her. He’d tucked her back in and cuddled her back to sleep. He was kind of glad she remembered. He’d had to leave early. He’d had to go all the way to Colorado Springs to do what he needed to do.

“Where the hell have you been?” Jesse didn’t seem impressed. He got to his feet with no trouble.

Cade hoped that was the case because he’d already talked to Doc Burke and Gemma was in the clear for some playtime. Turned out the doctor had kept her in the hospital more for Jesse’s sake than her own.

But Gemma still looked fragile. Maybe he should just take her home and put her in bed.

“Are you going to answer me?” Jesse asked.

“Stop.” Gemma got between the two of them but not the way Cade wanted her. “He’s here. Let’s just let him be.”

“I don’t know that’s going to work for me.” Jesse’s eyes were lasers threatening to take Cade out. “I wanted a partner, not someone who just shows up for sex every now and then.”

He deserved that so he didn’t put a fist through Jesse’s face. “I’ve been in Colorado Springs taking out a couple of loans. And you might have only wanted one partner, but now you have two.”

“What?”

This was the part that hopefully didn’t get him killed. He was making a lot of decisions that he probably shouldn’t be making, but he needed them to know he was in. “We’re buying into Long-Haired Roger’s shop. He’s agreed. It’s going to be Roger and Sons from now on. I know we’re not really his sons, but he says he thinks of us that way and he can’t leave the business to Princess Two. Though he tried. If he outlives that dog, you should know she becomes our legal property and there’s a whole list of crap that animal needs including something about expressing some sort of sac that sounds god awful. Let’s just keep Roger alive.”

“How did you do that?” Jesse stared at him, his mouth slightly open in shock.

“Well, first off, I sold the Camaro.”

Jesse gasped. “Your dad’s car? But you’ve kept that for years. You spent so much time rebuilding it. Why would you do that?”

“To pay off Gemma’s medical bills before I left town for good.”

They both started talking at once. Jesse promising a good ass kicking and Gemma trying to give him logic.

“Stop. I’m not leaving. I’m not going anywhere. But once I figured out Gemma’s bills had been paid, I thought I should put the money to better use. So I talked to Roger, and we’ll go full time and he’s going to start taking more jobs, including restoration jobs and custom bikes. We’re buying the new equipment we need. Roger gives up the space to work. And”—he took a deep breath—“I also bought Holly Lang’s old cabin. Doc Burke bought a big place on the mountain as an engagement present and they moved in yesterday. We still owe a lot on it, but it’s ours and it came fully furnished.”

They both just stared, and Cade sincerely hoped they weren’t just going to walk out on him. He talked as quickly as he could, praying they would listen. “Look, if you don’t like it we can always talk to Doc, and he’ll probably give us the down payment back, but I like the valley and I think it’s a great place. The cabin is small, but when we’re ready, we can add on. We have river access and the views are spectacular, and Gemma’s mom is right down the road and it’s normally fairly safe and it’s not far from work.”

“Shut up.” Gemma stared at him intently.

He closed his mouth, looking at Jesse, whose frown had been replaced with a big smile. But Gemma kept staring at him.

“You really bought us a cabin of our own?” she asked.

“Yeah. I know I should have talked about it, but someone else was interested and I had to move fast and…”

“Shut up.”

He stopped.

Gemma walked up to him, her lips curving in a smile. “Well, then, Cade Sinclair. I suspect you should take us home.”

One more damn confession. This was the worst of all. “I traded the bike for a car. A piece-of-crap, probably-will-break-down-in-a-heartbeat Jeep.”

“You traded your Harley?”

He shrugged. “Gemma, I bought that bike as a symbol. I was going to be free. But I don’t want to be free and you can’t put a baby seat on the back of a bike. And the three of us can’t ride together on a bike, so I traded it in. Got a horrible deal, really.”

Her smile nearly lit up his world. “Well, you’ll have to let me do the negotiating from now on. Won’t you?”

He would give it all up to her. “Damn straight.”

“Speaking of negotiations, so let me see, you come with a tiny cabin, a half-baked business idea, a shitty Jeep, and a ton of debt.”

Yeah, put that way he didn’t sound like a premier catch. Still. “Marry me.”

She tilted her head up. “You know I never turn down a good deal. Yes.”

He kissed her soundly as Jesse slapped him on the back and joined in.