Despite that, he still managed to squeeze the trigger.
A moment later, Brenna fell to the floor under her father’s weight. Her head hit the kitchen island, and pain exploded at the back of her skull. She closed her eyes against the rush of agony.
Pounding footsteps made her open them again. Marco turned to run, hobbling due to his gunshot wound, but he still made it to the front door. Cam gave chase.
“Stop, asshole!”
Marco just kept running, right past large bushes on either side of the door. As soon as Marco ran past them, a pair of cops concealed in those bushes jumped the criminal from behind, disarmed him with a knee in his back and a fist in his hair. They read
him his rights.
Brenna groaned, trembled and turned to her father, to thank him for saving her.
He lay on top of her in a heap, motionless. There was a little red hole right between his wide open eyes.
She screamed and scrambled back in utter shock. He slithered off her, still.
Brenna had come to Arizona for closure with her relationship with her father, but not like this. When she’d boarded the plane, she’d never imagined it would end in his death.
Suddenly, Thorn was there, raising her to her feet, curling her body into his, turning her gaze into his shoulder and away from Curtis’ sightless eyes.
“I’m sorry, baby. So sorry.”
Dead, dead, dead… The word was a chant in her brain. And she knew it would hit her at some point that he father was no more. But right now, shock and a gladness that Thorn and Cam were both okay filled her.
She couldn’t feel her legs. Dizziness assailed her. Her head throbbed mercilessly. The edges of her vision started to close in. Then…nothing.
* * * * *
Brenna awoke to sterile smells that assaulted her nostrils. She hadn’t died, right? Death couldn’t smell this chemically clean…
Her head ached as if someone had been using it as a drum at a heavy metal concert. She was lying on something soft. But she was definitely alive. Thanks to Curtis.
Memories assaulted her—good and bad. Julio Marco arrested…her father dead. It saddened her that they’d never had a real father-daughter relationship. But he’d made choices—to be a criminal, to get involved with Marco, to jump in front of the bullet. He’d cared enough about her to give his life so that she could live. That in itself confirmed that, in his way, he’d cared.
A moment later, the sensation that someone was staring besieged her.
Gingerly, she opened her eyes to a semidark room, thank God. Moonlight poured in through a little window. The ceiling was sterile white.
But the two concerned faces above her made her heart lurch with relief.
“You’re here…”
Cameron grabbed her hand. “We wouldn’t be anywhere else.”
Thorn caressed her cheek. “We haven’t left your side for the last four hours, despite some pissed-off cops.”
Brenna lifted her head a fraction and glanced past them to see two uniforms guarding the door, wearing identical glowers.
“They have questions.”
“Yes, but we didn’t want you to wake up alone.” Cameron kissed her cheek.
Thorn brushed his mouth over her lips softly. “You’ll be okay if we answer the police now?”
She nodded.
“The doctor wants to see you anyway,” Cam noted then backed away from the bed. “I’m sorry about your father.”
“Me too,” Thorn nodded. “I didn’t love the guy, but…”
“I know. You tried. I thank you for it.” She squeezed his hand.
A brisk forty-something woman in a white coat came in and shooed her men away. She did a quick exam, and asked a few questions before giving her a clean bill of health.
She rose from the bed gingerly. Two seconds after donning her clothes, the uniformed officers descended on her, asking a bevy of questions. But it didn’t take long. Evidently, her story corroborated Cam and Thorn’s. Marco and his surviving goon were behind bars. Between Marco and his lackey, along with the sworn statements her father had already given, the police had managed to conduct a raid of Marco’s secret properties and discovered dozens of illegal immigrants working against their will.
When Cam and Thorn returned to her draped-off corner of the emergency room to help her gather her things, they assured her that Marco would be going away to the big house for a long time.
It wouldn’t save her father. He was gone, and she hoped that he could find the peace in death that he’d never found in life. She might never know what demons drove him to badness, but she understood now that he could never be hurt again and that he hadn’t rejected her as much as he’d tried to protect her from the black life he’d built.
“What about your house?” Brenna asked Cam. “Marco and his guys trashed it.”
“My buddies already did the cleanup on aisle five. New glass will be delivered tomorrow. Why don’t you come see for yourself?”
Brenna cocked her head at his eager yet anxious expression. Did he fear she’d say no?
“I’d love to.”
Cam brushed his lips over hers. “Good, as long as you’re there, maybe I could persuade you to stay a while.”
She tamped down an excited smile. “How long is a while?”
He shrugged. “Fifty years. To start.”
Casting her shocked glance Thorn’s way, he looked tense too. Did he also want her to stay and was worried she wouldn’t? What was up with these two?
“What about him?”
“I’m in,” Thorn replied. “We’ve discussed it.”
“So you’ve mapped out my whole future?”
Put that way, they both had the grace to look sheepish.
“Well,” Cam began, “we had a thought. But we’d love to hear yours.”
“Okay. Why don’t I come stay for a few weeks with you two, and we’ll see how it goes.”
Thorn gritted his teeth and cursed. “That plan sucks.”
Brenna sashayed closer to them, stopping between them to glance at one, then the other. Talk about unexpected… “What exactly did you have in mind?”
“A hell of a lot more than a vacation fling,” Thorn groused. “We want you to move here. We want to make things permanent. I love you. God, I’ve never said that to anyone in my life,” Thorn said in one breath. “Scarier than shit. But it’s true. I care about you both. I’ve never had a personal life that meant more than a cheap fuck. You and Cam mean…everything.”
Thorn wasn’t great with words but sincerity ruled his face. It was impossible not to believe him.
Impossible not to be celebrating inside.
“Let me hear this plan you two cooked up.”
Thorn opened his mouth but Cam cut him off. “We thought maybe you could move in with me. Us. Thorn will give up his trailer.”
“Lars can have the piece of shit.”
Cam sent him a glare, then turned back to her with an expression so placating, it was comical. “Then we hoped you would marry me.”
She blinked once. Twice. Marriage? She’d known them less than thirty-six hours.
Yet she didn’t doubt the fact she loved them both. They loved her and each other. Conventional, no. But no one’s business. If she was happy with them, to hell with everyone else’s opinion.