Up in a Blaze Read online

  Yeah, these guys thought it was going to be so easy, but Gregory knew in his gut that nothing was ever easy. Trying to gun down two women the Texas Rangers were protecting wasn’t going to be an easy job whatsoever.

  Then a thought hit him and he shrugged his shoulders. It was these guys’ necks on the line if they got caught, not his. He would make damn sure they wouldn’t be able to find him by the time they came looking for him. Nope, he’d be onto another group of lowlifes and another plan. Simple as that.

  Gregory nodded his head at Bruce. “Fine, take who you want and go.” Gregory walked over and puffed out his chest. These idiots needed to remember he was the boss. “Just make sure you succeed.”

  *****

  As nice as the lounge the guys had set up for the ladies was, it got old really quick. By the end of the first week each of the ladies was ready to grab one of the rangers and wring their neck. Oh, everyone was just as polite as you please, but there was only so long six ladies could stand being cooped up in the same room day after day with nothing to do. By the end of the first week, Bethany and Meredith had convinced Walter to let them back out into the field with their mates, and Betty had been placed back out front in the receptionist area. Sissy seemed to always find something that needed to be done, so she kept herself busy, and poor Susan was hanging out in the bathroom due to morning sickness more than she was in the lounge. That left Cassie with nothing to do. When she heard Walter was looking for someone with administrative experience, she jumped at the chance to do something to contribute.

  Cassie was sitting at the front desk typing up a document for Walter. Once Walter realized Cassie held a degree in business administration, he had promptly offered her the receptionist/secretary position, which Betty had been filling in for. Betty was overjoyed when her friend accepted the position. She would do anything in the world for her sister and brother-in-law, but she hated paperwork.

  Every one of the rangers had stopped her in the last two days to thank her for putting a smile back on Walter’s face. She loved her new job, happy she was able to put a bit of her education to use. With Sissy’s help, the women had cleared Walter’s desk off the first day she was on the job. Then they tackled cleaning out and organizing the filing cabinets, and just the day before she had been able to help Walter with some of his paperwork by showing him how to set it up as a document on his computer and then showed him how to have the computer ‘auto-fill’ the form as much as possible. Walter, who had been hand writing out the forms for years, was overjoyed at how much time it saved.

  She thought back to her last two weeks spent with Donte. After that one night that he had given her pleasure, they hadn’t taken things any further. He stated he wanted to give her time to heal, and that he could afford to wait until her ribs were mended. He also stated he wanted to give her the opportunity to get to know him as a person before he took things any further. So they had many late night talks. He told her things he had seen and participated in during the course of his long life. He told her what it was like to be a vampire, especially working with the public as much as the rangers did, and having to hide who they really were. Then they talked about mating. He explained that vampires mated for life. There was no such thing as divorce, and as far as he knew no vampire had ever wanted to separate from their life mate. It just didn’t happen.

  They talked, watched movies, teased one another, and cuddled at night. The only thing left was sex, but she understood his reasons. He didn’t want to hurt her accidently. And he wanted to make damn sure she was ready to be his mate when he did take her. She knew she was. The more he opened up to her and told her about himself, the more she fell in love with the man. It didn’t matter that he was a vampire. He had been nothing but be a complete gentleman since meeting her. For that matter, so were all the other rangers she now knew were vampires. Hell, even her friend, Betty was now one, but she had spent enough time around all of them to know they were good people. Much to her surprise, she felt like a piece of her heart was missing every time they were separated. This was something she had honestly never felt before, and it worried her a bit until Donte confessed one night to feeling the same way. He explained that mates needed to be together often, and that it was difficult on both when they were separated. Part of being a mate to a vampire, he’d assured her. Then he surprised her yet again by pulling out a drawing he had done up the first day they met while she was still in the hospital. The drawing was of her. He confessed to carrying it around with him often, just so he could feel close to her. She asked him if he would do one up for her of himself, and with a wide grin, he was quick to assure her he would.

  She sighed, the last two weeks had been as close to perfect as she’d ever known. Even her dreams were full of just the two of them, now that Samuel had successfully removed the spell Gregory had put on her.

  The reception desk phone rang and Cassie stopped typing to reach over and answer it. “Texas Ranger Headquarters, how may I help you?”

  “You just did, sweetheart.” The line went dead immediately, and as Cassie turned back to her computer screen, movement out of the corner of her eye caught her attention.

  Suddenly, there was a body flying at her, as in literally flying, as someone jumped over the front of the receptionist counter and plowed into her. She let out a panicked scream a second before she heard glass breaking as her and her attacker hit the floor hard. She suddenly felt disoriented, the ringing in her ears was preventing her from hearing anything. Was that a shot she heard? Did someone just try to kill her?

  She was roughly yanked up off the floor and hauled through the office. She could see feet running in the opposite direction, but she couldn’t make out what was going on. It would have helped if she could hear anything other than the constant ringing. She thought she heard shouts from the other rangers, as she briefly wondered who had her and where they were taking her.

  Donte swore he aged a hundred years in the last two minutes. He was so thankful that Kade had decided to park on the front street instead of around back where they usually parked. As they walked in the front door, he saw Cassie working at the receptionist desk as she had been for over a week now. Something drew his attention to her just as she rolled her seat a bit to answer the phone. As soon as she did, Donte spotted it. A red dot aimed at her chest.

  He had no time to issue a warning, he just sprang into action. He had a running head start as he jumped up and over the front counter, knocking her to the floor, using his much larger body to shield her from the bullet he knew was only seconds away from taking her out.

  As soon as he heard the rest of his team come running to help, he had grabbed Cassie and was running through the office and up the stairs for the medical unit. He burst through the stairwell doors. “Doc! Doc! I need you stat!” he shouted as he carried his treasure into an exam room that had no windows.

  “What is all the commotion about?” Dr. Weathers inquired as he walked into the room.

  Unfortunately, Donte’s adrenaline was still running high from the incident. He glanced down and realized he was still holding Cassie, had been since the shot rang out, but he had no idea of the extent of her injuries. Damn, I bet that fall to the floor with me on top of her had to hurt like a bitch! He was somewhat reluctant to let go of her for fear of what he would find. Had she been hit by the bullet? He felt it graze his left arm on the way down.

  Very carefully, as if he carried his greatest treasure, he unlocked his arms and gently placed her on the exam table. “Someone took a shot at her downstairs.”

  Dr. Weathers arched an eyebrow upwards, but he didn’t say anything as he stepped up beside the exam table. “Ms…” he glanced over to Donte for help as to who this was.

  “Cassie. Her name is Cassie and she’s my mate, doc.”

  Dr. Weathers spoke in low soothing tones as much for Donte’s benefit as it was for Cassie’s.

  “Well now, Cassie, I’m Dr. Weathers, can you tell me…” he didn’t get any further before a screechi
ng female voice came through the doorway.

  “Oh my God, Cassie, Cassie, are you okay? Walter just phoned up here and told me what happened. Are you hurt? Did you get hit?” Betty’s anxious voice came from the doorway. Since Cassie had taken over the secretarial/receptionist duties, Betty had decided to help upstairs in the medical unit.

  “Ms. Sutton, I know you’re concerned about your friend, but I need to check her over to make sure she’s okay. Your questions are going to need to wait until I identify her injuries.”

  Dr. Weathers turned back around to face his patient and started to ask her more questions when more voices broke through the doorway.

  “Doc, how bad is she?” this came from Walter.

  “Oh no, I knew having her up front like that was a bad idea.” Walter’s wife, Sissy, stood next to her mate wringing her hands in distress.

  “Hey, doll, so I see Donte went all He-Man on you, yeah?” This came from the tall cowboy wearing a Stetson hat which doc had never seen before.

  “Damn, man, whoever said vampires can’t fly surely hasn’t met Donte yet, because I just watched the man fly from one end of the room to the other,” Kade stated in a low chuckle.

  “All right, everyone OUT!” shouted the normally even tempered doctor. He turned and glared at his audience all standing in the doorway of the exam room. “I mean it, I’ll come talk to you once I’ve examined the patient, but for now, everyone OUT!”

  Donte stood there and folded his arms across his chest. He didn’t give a damn if doc was including him in that demand or not, he wasn’t leaving until he knew Cassie was okay. Dr. Weathers turned and glared at him for a moment, but kept quiet and turned his attention to his patient.

  “Where’s this blood coming from?” he inquired as he lifted his hand, which he had placed on her hip a moment prior. “Did you get hit?”

  Cassie stared at him and wondered if she had fallen in a rabbit hole somewhere. She attempted to comprehend what he was saying, she really did, but was failing miserably. All she knew was her side burned like a bitch, and now that the ringing in her ears had stopped, everything seemed to be going fuzzy.

  “Hurt,” she replied before her eyelids fluttered closed, and blackness descended.

  “Doc?” Donte questioned as he watched his mate black out and Dr. Weathers spring into action. He watched doc pull up the side of her shirt, which was quickly becoming soaked in blood. “Shit, she did get shot!”

  “Don’t go hitting the panic button, Donte. It looks like the bullet only grazed her. It’s a superficial wound. Now let me make certain that is the only one.” Donte watched as doc checked her over, relieved when no more injuries were found.

  “How about her back? I had to tackle her pretty hard to the ground. Her back took the majority of the impact.”

  “I’m going to dress this wound on her side then we’ll wait for her to wake up to see if her back is hurt or not.”

  Donte listened to the doctor, but still wasn’t happy. Although he considered himself very fortunate he’d been there to save her, and that it could have turned out much, much worse, he was still kicking himself over the fact that she was injured at all.

  He ran his hand over his face and noticed the blood on his hand. Then he remembered the bullet had nicked his arm as well. He turned his head trying to see the wound, and noticed it was already healing over. He wiped his hand on a hand towel doc had pulled out of a drawer and handed him.

  “Do I need to look at that?” Dr. Weathers asked as he handed Donte the towel.

  Donte took the towel and wiped his hands, then pressed the towel gently to the tender area on the back of his arm. “Nah, it’s already healing over.” He looked back down at Cassie. “How long do you think she’ll be out?”

  “I’m going to give her a shot for pain, so she’ll probably be out of it for a while. Why don’t you go fill everyone else in?”

  Donte nodded then stuck his hand out to Dr. Weathers. “Thanks, doc. She means the world to me. I just don’t want to lose her so quickly.”

  Dr. Weathers nodded in understanding. “I take it you two haven’t reached the point of exchanging blood yet?”

  Donte shook his head with a frown. “No, we haven’t. I was taking it slow, giving her a chance to get to know me and all. Also, I wanted to make sure her ribs and other injuries were completely healed up.” He glanced down at his mate with a frown. “Now I’m kind of wishing I would have pushed things along. She would have healed up a lot faster if she had a little bit of my blood in her system.”

  “Yes, it would have helped a bit, but honestly, she’s in no danger, I give you my word. If she was, I’d have already asked you if you wanted to force a bit into her.” Dr. Weathers walked over and placed his hand on Donte’s shoulder. “She’s going to be okay, I promise.”

  The two men walked out of the exam room, each going a different way once they reached the hallway. Donte followed the voices until he came upon everyone gathered around the small nurse’s station.

  “Donte, how is she?” Walter demanded as soon as he turned the corner.

  “She passed out, but doc says the bullet only grazed her side, it could have been a lot worse.” Donte accepted the hug Betty gave him, only because he figured the woman could use one. Besides, he smirked when he heard a low growl coming from Samuel. Better hurry up and claim your mate, son. Daylight is a wasting!

  “What in the hell happened?” Now that Walter knew his secretary was going to live, he was all business.

  “Kade and I had just walked in the front door. When I glanced over to her, she was reaching for the phone and I saw a red dot on her chest. I didn’t have time to think, I just reacted.”

  “I’ve got guys combing through the buildings surrounding us, but I doubt we’ll get lucky. A few of us will go back out after dark as people start going to sleep to access some of the rooftops and see if we can at least identify where he was hiding.”

  Donte looked over at his boss. Even though he was considerably older than Walter, he had never tried to hold that over the man’s head whatsoever. Truly, he thought Walter was a great leader, and he enjoyed working beside him. But he was about to make one point extremely clear. “Listen, I know you like having Cassie working with us, and I understand she’s good at what she does, but I refuse to compromise her safety anymore.”

  Walter sighed, but remained quiet for a moment. Donte knew he was thinking, he just didn’t know what about. “Yeah, we’ve got a couple of problems here. First off, if he has hired a sharpshooter to take her out, she is in danger anytime she’s out in the open, or near a window for that matter.” He stopped and glanced over to his sister-in-law. “Same goes for Betty. I think it’s time we make some changes to keep these women safe. Here’s what I propose…”

  *****

  Cassie woke up a bit dazed and confused. The first thing she saw when she opened her eyes was Donte’s concerned face. His hand came up to her face, his fingertips just barely skating across her cheek.

  “Hey, sweetheart, it’s good to see you awake. You gave me quite a scare earlier today.”

  “Wh-what happened?” She was trying to jump-start her brain, which seemed to be wrapped in a thick layer of cotton, very similar to her tongue. She tried to pull saliva from her mouth to wet her tongue, but her entire mouth felt like she had swallowed sandpaper.

  “Would you like a sip of water?” Donte asked as he reached for something beside her. He brought a small Styrofoam cup with a straw in it over to her. “Just take a sip or two. Your dry mouth is due to the medicine doc had to give you.”

  “Medicine?” she asked between sips. “What happened to me?”

  “Do you remember me barreling over the reception desk and knocking you to the floor?”

  “I think so. Were we attacked?”

  “I walked in the front door and glanced over your way only to see a red dot on your chest. You were answering the phone. Remember?”

  “Yeah, I think it was a prank call or something. Wh
en I asked them if I could help them, the voice on the other end said, “You already have,” and hung up. I was being knocked to the ground a second later.”

  Donte shook his head. “I knew I only had seconds to get you out of the line of fire. Someone was evidently hiding close enough, they were able to get a bead on you, and were planning to shoot you. If they had been successful, it is highly unlikely you would have survived.”

  Cassie’s eyes filled with tears, damn near ripping out what was left of Donte’s heart. “Hey, sweetheart, don’t cry. I didn’t mean to upset you.” He quickly pushed the button to raise the bed up. Taking her head in his hands, he brought his own head down until it was directly in front of her. “It’s over, and they didn’t succeed, thank the heavens above. While you’ve been in your healing rest, Walter and I have come up with some ways to keep both you and Betty safe, because even though that bullet had your name on it, we know who is behind this. And now we know he is here in Texas, so that puts both of you at risk.”

  “Ahh, I see my patient is awake!” A man walked into the room wearing a white lab coat and Cassie assumed this was the team’s doctor.

  The man walked up beside Donte. “Hi, Cassie, I’m Dr. Weathers. How are you feeling?” He noticed the tears in her eyes and was quick to inquire, “Are you in any pain?” as he gently reached down to check her pulse.

  Cassie shook her head. “No, I’m not in any pain. I’m just…it’s just hard to understand why someone would want me dead so desperately.” She shook her head again, trying to dispel the cotton that seemed to have her brain wrapped up tightly, then glanced up at Dr. Weathers and gave him a small smile. “Everything’s still a little fuzzy, but no, I’m not in any pain.”

  She turned her attention back to Donte. “Okay, so what happened after you tackled me to the ground?”

  “I heard the shot go off, but didn’t know if I made it in time for the bullet to miss you or not. As soon as I heard footsteps and knew backup was there, I snatched you up and ran you upstairs here to Dr. Weathers.” His eyes dropped from her face to her hip. “That’s when we realized you’d been hit, but we lucked out and the bullet just grazed your side.”