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Bowie smiled at her. It was a warm, comforting smile. “Cross my heart,” he said. And then to get his message across, he did just that. “Scout’s honor.”
“Since when were you a Boy Scout?” she asked.
But oddly enough, she wasn’t belittling him or even scoffing at his answer. She was, Marlowe realized, incredibly touched and unbelievably grateful for his offer.
Bowie’s reaction to the news when she had told him had been a complete surprise. So many men would have immediately claimed that the baby wasn’t theirs, and yet he had taken the news, once the initial surprise had worn off, in stride.
And unlike what so many partners, especially casual ones, would have said, his response was different. They would have said, “You’re on your own, honey.” Or just told her to “get rid of it,” washing their hands of the whole thing.
But Bowie hadn’t. He wasn’t behaving at all the way she would have expected that he would. Instead, he was assuring her that he would be there for her, ready to hold her hand, to help in any way she needed. To do anything she asked of him.
Marlowe felt tears filling her eyes. She immediately willed them away. There was nothing she hated more than women who broke down in tears.
And she was strong, Marlowe silently insisted. She was.
But strong or not, she felt so grateful for Bowie’s closeness, grateful beyond words to have someone to share this completely unexpected, overwhelming responsibility with.
At that moment, she felt not only incredibly thankful to him, but, in addition, she felt closer to Bowie than she ever had to another living soul.
Feeling utterly vulnerable, Marlowe rose to her feet. Bowie rose with her. They were standing inches apart.
Less than inches.
Bowie put his hands on the sides of her shoulders, drawing her closer still. They were all but in each other’s shadows.
Marlowe could feel herself leaning into Bowie, and she felt that he was doing the same.
Her breath caught in her throat, and her heart rate suddenly launched into double time as she leaned in even closer to him than she’d been a second ago.
He was going to kiss her, and she desperately wanted him to, she thought. There was absolutely no alcohol involved this time, and she still really, really wanted to kiss him.
To have him kiss her.
And then, without any warning, it happened.
Just as their lips were a fraction away from meeting, a gunshot echoed as a bullet came crashing through her window. It shattered the glass and came so close to Bowie’s head that, for one awful, awful moment, she was convinced that he had been shot.
That he had been killed.
Time froze even as he fell on top of her, his body covering hers.
It was the pounding beat of his heart that alerted her he was still alive.
Bowie was apparently trying to shield her with his body the second he’d heard the gun discharge.
The weight of his body on hers had knocked the wind right out of her.
Terror had done the rest.
Bowie stayed exactly where he was, immobile except when he evidently raised his head to conduct an up close inventory of her condition.
“Are you hurt?” he asked, his voice thick with emotion.
“Other than having all this heavy weight on my body, I think I’m fine,” she told him, struggling to remain positive. But that immediately gave way to fear. “Someone just shot at you,” she cried.
“I know,” he told her. “I was there. Except that I think it was at us. Or at you.” But they could sort that out later. “Are you sure you’re all right?” he asked.
“I will be as soon as you get off me,” Marlowe told him. “You really are heavy.”
