Strong And Sexy

Chapter 26

Dani’s fingers shook as she tossed Shayne his pants. Pulling on her clothes, she dropped to the floor next to Shayne. “Police are on their way. Ambulance too. Ohmigod, is she-”

“Alive. She’s alive.”

Dani gulped for air. Alive was good, very very good.

Maddie’s eyes fluttered open. “Shayne?”

He leaned over her, grabbing her hands. “Right here, I’m right here.”

Maddie gasped. “She’s completely lost it.” Her face was a tight mask of pain. “Goddammit, getting shot hurts.”

Shayne was peeling her shirt away so he could see the wound. “Maddie, you’re bleeding like a sieve.”

Dani leaned over Shayne and saw that Maddie had a bullet hole in the region of her collarbone. One that was pumping out a shocking amount of blood.

Maddie coughed. “Shayne-”

“Don’t talk,” Shayne begged her, pulling his shirt from the foot of the bed and pressing it against Maddie’s wound.

“Listen,” Maddie said, grabbing his hand. “She’s not Dani’s stalker. She’s yours.”

Shayne gently pushed her hair from her face and cupped her jaw. “I love you, Maddie, you know I do. But when you talk, you’re pumping blood out like a hose. So shut the hell up, okay? Just shut up and hold on.”

“No. Please.” She licked her dry lips. “Get Dani out of here, okay? Or Michelle’ll shoot her too.”

Michelle? Dani looked at Shayne, who appeared just as shocked as she.

“She’s been scaring off all your dates since she became a client and fell all in psycho love with you,” Maddie managed. “But Dani didn’t scare off-Oh, God.” She closed her eyes, her face pasty white and damp with perspiration.

“Maddie,” Shayne said hoarsely. “We’ve got help coming, so you just hang on. You hear me? Hang on.” He pulled back to look down into her face. “Christ.” Setting her back on the floor, he checked her pulse.

“Is she-”

“Alive.” His mouth was grim. “The bullet went all the way through. Maddie?”

No response.

“Shock is going to set in.” Dani covered her with a blanket from the bed. “We have to keep her warm.”

A funny ping sounded, and Dani would have sworn something whizzed right by her ear as the window cracked above her.

And then the wall splintered.

“Down.” Shayne accompanied this demand by fisting his hand in Dani’s shirt and tugging hard. He hunched over both her and Maddie, craning his neck, eyeing something behind her. “We’re sitting ducks in here. We have to get out, and that’s our only chance.”

“What is?”

“Back door. Come on.” Hoisting Maddie up into a fireman’s hold over one shoulder, he grabbed Dani’s hand and yanked her to the exit on the opposite side of the plane. “Stay low.” He cracked the door.

They were facing the steel wall of the hangar. Five feet to the right was a door to a long hallway that led to the maintenance and mechanic’s offices. “There.” But just as he reached for the door, another ping ricocheted off the steel doorway above his head.

Before Dani could draw a breath to scream, Shayne shoved her ahead of him, around the back of the plane. In front of them was one of the golf carts they used to transport clients and their luggage back and forth from their planes to the lobby. Shayne carefully set Maddie in the back. Dani hopped into the passenger seat while Shayne took the driver’s side and turned the key.

The engine was loud, and as Shayne hit the gas and held the wheel with his left hand, he shoved Dani’s head down with his right, keeping his hand there as if he could protect her from getting shot. He took a hard right, and Dani let out a breath, thinking they were going to make it, but then came the staccato beat of bullets against the steel wall of the hangar, close enough to make her ears ring.

“She’s shooting up the Lear! Hold on!” he shouted.

He wasn’t kidding, because suddenly it felt like they were in a spin and Dani was flung hard against the door. But just as she braced herself, they spun in the other direction and she slammed into Shayne. “God, what about Maddie?”

“She’s wedged in,” he told her grimly.

Bleeding to death…

Oh, God, this was bad, so very, very bad. More bullets, and Dani bit her lip to keep her scream in.

“Christ, and now the Piper,” Shayne muttered and took his hand off Dani’s head to put both hands on the wheel, which he promptly tugged hard to the right.

From Dani’s vantage point, she caught sight of a plane wing, and then just the ceiling of the hangar, which was a series of rafters and wires and lights. And then she saw it.

A flash of leg.

Female leg.

“She’s above us,” Dani gasped. “In the rafters.”

Pop, pop, pop.

“And the Moody. Goddammit, that’s not even ours!” He made a hard right, and the engine coughed. Stalled.

Died.

“Fuck.” He pulled Dani out of the seat and then grabbed Maddie as if she weighed nothing. “I’m going to kill Brody for being too damn cheap to upgrade that cart!”

“Do we have a plan?”

“Yes. Run like hell. Behind the Beechcraft-”

“The what?”

“Behind that plane ahead of you is the maintenance closet. It’s built like a tanker.”

They rounded the back of the plane, with Dani’s skin literally leaping at every heartbeat, expecting to be pierced by a bullet at any second.

Instead, Shayne yanked open the door of the closet, set Maddie down and then shoved Dani in after her.

“What-” she started but he put his fingers over her mouth.

“Stay in here, you’ll be safe.”

Oh, God. She snagged his arm just as he turned away. “Where are you going?”

“To make sure you stay safe.”

He was going to play the hero. “No, Shayne-”

“I have to stop her. We have other clients on the premises.”

“She’s got a damn gun!”

“She won’t shoot me. I’m going to draw her away until the cops come.” He waited until she thought about exactly how true that was-Michelle didn’t want Shayne dead, she wanted him very much alive.

“She’s crazy,” she whispered.

“Nutso. So swear to me you’ll stay here.”

While he went out there, unprotected.

“Dani. Swear to me.” He closed his eyes, then leaned in and put his mouth to her ear. “I can’t do this with you right next to me, a target.” His voice was low, hoarse. “I can’t think when you’re out there, a target.”

A huge admission, one that reached into her soul and warmed it. “She’s in the rafters,” she whispered.

“I know.”

She fisted her hand in the front of his shirt, dragging his face to hers. “Don’t get hurt. Not one hair on your head. Swear it.”

“I won’t get hurt.” He covered her hand with his until she loosened her grip on him, then kissed her once, his eyes on hers as he slammed the door in her face.