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Mandy squatted beside the access ladder, with her back to the rig, taking aim at Ian. She’s so certain she’s got you beat. Figures you’re too weak to pose a threat. Her eyes landed on the kitchen knife, lying on the platform where Mandy had tossed it. Think again, bitch.
She lunged for the knife at the same time Mandy pumped off a shot. Stacy’s heart stalled. Return fire from below relieved and galvanized her. She grabbed the knife. Mandy edged closer to the ladder and prepared to take another shot.
“No!” Stacy charged forward and brought the knife down with all the strength she could muster. She aimed for a lung or a kidney, but Mandy sensed the attack and straightened at the last second, and the blade ended up planted between her shoulders.
Mandy screamed and turned on her, eyes wild, teeth bared. “Bitch,” she muttered.
Stacy would have liked to reply, “Takes one to know one,” but there was no more spit in her mouth.
“And now you die.” Mandy raised the gun and pointed it at her head.
She stared down the barrel and swallowed bitter regret. This was it. She’d missed her chance to tell Ian, “I love you.”
…
Ian climbed the last few feet like a monkey on crack. He hauled himself onto the platform, pulled his gun from the waist of his jeans, and yelled, “Drop it!”
The nun didn’t drop it, and he didn’t waste time on a second warning. He fired.
The slug he put in her leg knocked it right out from under her. Her gun flew out of her hand. Stacy dove after it, snagged the airborne weapon, and landed on her knees.
He raced toward her. From somewhere behind him he heard Trevor say, “I’ve got the nun,” and then, thank God, he had Stacy in his arms.
“Ian,” she looked up at him with big, pain-hazed eyes, held out the gun, and gave him a weak smile.
“Good catch,” he replied, hoping to make the smile linger, but it was too late. She’d already passed out.
Chapter Twelve
The light hum of female voices registered first, followed by the smell of roses and lilies. Stacy lay still for a moment, kept her eyes closed, and did a quick physical inventory. Toes? Check. Fingers? Check. Head st
ill attached to shoulders? Check.
Best she could tell, all parts were present and accounted for. She felt stiff and groggy, like she’d been asleep for a week, but nothing too alarming. A vague impression of Ian holding her hand and telling her not to worry about anything danced through her mind, but she couldn’t say for sure whether that was memory or wishful thinking. She racked her brain for something more. Other images formed—a nurse with a short brunette bob offering her water. Kylie smiling through tears while helping brush her teeth and hair—but no Ian.
Deciding to chance a look around, she opened her eyes, and blinked a few times to adjust to the sudden brightness. Sunlight streamed through an unfamiliar window, below which sat a metal cabinet holding a farmers’ market worth of flowers. “Holy crap. Am I dead?”
“What a question, Snowflake.”
She turned her head and realized the flowers were not the wildest, most colorful things in the room. Ginger sat in a chair beside her bed, wearing short, eye-popping red spandex. Lee Ann perched on the arm of her chair, in Daisy Dukes and a pink plaid shirt knotted under her breasts. Ari stepped to Ginger’s other side and adjusted the thin shoulder strap of a slinky purple dress.
“Oh, my God. I am dead. I’ve died and gone to hell.”
Ari raised one perfectly plucked brow. “No. The devil did not want you.”
“That’s right, sugar. Instead, you’re stuck in the hospital for a few days. But don’t fret one little bit.” Lee Ann smiled her big, beaming, Southern belle smile. “We’re here to help you pass the time.”
“You’re here to hit on the doctors,” she shot back, but couldn’t keep the grin off her face.
“The upside of you being here is that we can do both,” Ginger said.
Just then a humongous arrangement of white flowers waddled into the room.
“Holy shit, Vern. What did you do, mug a flower cart on your way here?”
Vern lumbered over to the flower-laden cabinet by the window and dumped his load. “Least we could do, kid. Thanks to you, we’ve had calls for reservations tonight. Reservations! We’re a strip club, people. We don’t take no stinking reservations.”
“What makes you think that’s because of me?”
