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“Fine. I’ll tell him to hold ... for now. But he’s still going to watch them, and if I think for one second they are a threat, I’ll give the order.”
TWENTY-TWO
CHRISTIAN APPRECIATEDthe hospital staff, but he wasn’t spending the rest of the night in the frigid ER pit with an IV strapped just below the hollow of his elbow. Someone had tried to take them out twice. It made no sense. They were leaving them messages, asking them to play some twisted game, all the while trying to kill them. What kind of sicko were they dealing with?
This time there’d been no message left. He figured it was due to one of two options. Either the thieves assumed they’d be dead and there was no use leaving one, or someone else was involved. Oddly enough, he was leaning toward the latter. He couldn’t see any reason the thieves would purposely destroy their intended heist. Most thieves didn’t have it in them to destroy something so valuable. Even if they’d seen them there, they could easily have come back another night. It wasn’t like he and Andi could watch the gallery nonstop. It didn’t make sense. But he hadn’t had time to chat with Andi about it.
They’d whisked her away in the first ambulance before he’d even been looked at by the second. He didn’t care about being looked at second. What he did care about was her being out of his sight while they were in a killer’s.
His muscles tensed, and the BP sleeve inflated like clockwork, squeezing his arm. 140 over 80. That would flag the nurse’s concern, but he wasn’t staying.
Thankfully, Harold had his undersheriff run Deckard’s SUV to the hospital for when they were discharged. But Christian wasn’t waiting around for an official discharge. They’d want to observe them for hours, possibly a day. And they didn’t have that kind of time. They had thieves to track, and they were just killing time sitting around.
If Andi was good enough to leave, then they’d go. And if she agreed, he was bringing her to the ranch. She’d no doubt balk, but until they caught the thieves, he wasn’t letting her out of his sight. With no note left, the belief someone else was in play only dug deeper into his gut. The thieves were intelligent, very precise in their work. It didn’t match the rash attempts on their lives.
Thirty minutes later, he’d had enough of sitting around, listening to beeping machines and the click of the IV machine as it fed liquid into his system. It had been long enough. He loosened the tape around the IV needle, and with one swift yank, tugged it from his arm.
Swinging his legs over the bed, he snagged his clothes from the yellow plastic bag, pulled the curtain closed, and changed.
His clothes reeked of smoke, but they were all he had. He’d shower and change once back at the ranch.
Seeing no signs of his nurse, he headed down the corridor, looking for Andi. He caught sight of her through a curtain opening and smiled. She looked just as thrilled about their surroundings as he was.
“Hey,” he said, clutching the curtain in one hand. “Okay to come in?”
“Of course.” She waved him in. “Hey, how come you got discharged and I didn’t?”
“I just left.”
“Exactly what I’m going to do.”
“Are you sure you’re okay?”
“Yes, I’m fine. We gotta go.”
“Okay, I’ll be in the hall.”
Within two minutes—if that—she stood by his side. “What about our ride?”
“In the lot. Keys under the mat, thanks to Harold’s undersheriff.”
He stepped out first, then gave her the go-ahead. He only relaxed—slightly—once they were in the SUV. He started the ignition, and they were out of the lot before Andi had even buckled in.
“Sorry,” he said as her belt clicked in place.
“All good. I was ready to be out of there too.”
“We should stay at the ranch tonight.”
“We? The ranch?”
“Don’t worry. We have three houses on the property. You can stay with my sister Riley or wherever you’re most comfortable. We need to stick together until we get whoever’s behind this, okay?”
She bit her bottom lip and shifted in her seat. “Okay,” she finally said.
Relief sifted through him.
“So you live on a ranch?” she asked, swiping a hand through her hair, which now tumbled down her shoulders.
