Maddie froze. She could feel him looming over her, his breath brushing against her hair. And her body betrayed her again, wanting his hands on her, even as she trembled with a rush of fear-based adrenaline.
“How come you’re lying to me?” His voice was flat with no trace of emotion.
“What do you mean?” Maddie crossed her arms defensively in front of her, trying to stop the trembling. There was no need to be afraid. Zach was a cheat, yes, but he had nothing to gain by hurting her.
“I might not have seen you naked, but I’ve touched you and your belly ain’t got no stretch marks. You ain’t never had a baby.” Zach waited for her to admit the truth, but all she seemed capable of doing was standing there, facing the door and trembling.
“Turn around.” When she made no move, he said it again. “Turn around.”
Maddie’s right hand snaked into her shoulder bag. “Please … step back. Give me some space.”
The sense of him looming over her retreated, but she was all too aware of how fast that could change. Her fingers tightened around the grip. It was the first time since she’d started carrying it that she’d actually reached for it. The barrel caught on the edge of the bag, as Vince had always warned her it would. She jerked it free and, with both hands throttling the grip, pointed it as she turned.
“Whoa!” Instinctively, Zach backed up another step, his hands rising in the air, not in surrender, but as though denying he was any kind of threat.
He looked at her cautiously. If he had any sense, he’d look a lot more scared, Maddie thought. Couldn’t he see the way her hands were shaking?
“Hey, Maddie, I’m sorry. I don’t know what I did to set you off but I’m sorry. I thought-”
“Yes, I know what you thought,” Maddie said, her voice quaking. “You thought we were having a good time. But that was before I knew about Rachel. I won’t do that to another woman. I won’t be the cause of her pain. You— lying—” She couldn’t think of anything bad enough to call him.
“This is about the phone call?” Zach said. “Oh, no, darlin’. It ain’t what you think.” He seemed to forget himself and took a step forward. “I can explain.”
“Yeah, that’s what they all say.” Derek had certainly said it to
Laurel
often enough. Maddie had seen how much it had hurt her sister every time she’d caught Derek with another woman. No way did she want to be the cause of another woman feeling that.
“Really, it’s not what you think. I’m not married. He turned his wrists, making sure she could see the fingers, empty of rings. “I don’t even have a girlfriend. I just come off an offshore oil rig. I ain’t even had a date for months.”
Josh Turner started singing about how he loved his woman so.
Maddie gripped the gun harder but the barrel only wobbled more. She had never understood why
Laurel
had stayed with Derek so long, but she was starting to. Zach was so sincere sounding, his face so earnest. Here she barely knew him and she wanted to believe him. How much worse had it been for Laurel who had already been in love when she’d found out what a jerk Derek really was?
“Look, Maddie, I don’t know who hurt you.” Zach took a cautious step forward. His hands were lower but still held in a way that denied any threat. “But it wasn’t me.”
“I know that,” Maddie said, her voice shaking as badly as her hands. Even her insides felt as though they were quivering. “But you’re just like him. One woman’s not enough. You take a woman’s heart and you break it into little pieces.”
“That’s not what’s happening here. Rachel’s my sister.”
“Sure, she is.” Just how stupid did he think she was?
“Maddie, give me the gun.”
“Stop right there. I don’t want to shoot you. I just want to go home.”
“That’s fine. I won’t stop you, but you can’t step out the door with a gun drawn.”
When someone knocked insistently on the door at her back, Maddie’s hands clenched, her finger tightening on the trigger. The explosion sounded like a cannon going off in the room and the sharp smell of gunpowder filled the air. The bullet spun Zach around. He fell against the bed, and slid down until he was sitting on the floor beside it, facing away from her.
“Oh my God!” The gun fell from her numb fingers and bounced across the floor.
*
The air in the room seemed suddenly thin as Zach tried to breathe through the pain. His eyes slipped in and out of focus as he struggled to ground himself. Pain shot through his wounded arm as hands turned him roughly around. His legs sprawled loosely in front of him, like a puppet with its strings cut. His left hand clutched his right arm midway up from the elbow. Rachel’s dark eyes looked bigger than they should. It was the haircut, he thought, irrelevantly. That damned man’s cut emphasized her eyes and made her look deceptively feminine.
Maddie was there beside his sister, her face white with shock. “Oh, God! Zach, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to— I didn’t want to—”
Poor kid
. He turned his face towards her. “I know.”
Maddie’s eyes filled with tears but she held them back.
Rachel shoved her roughly aside. “Zach!” she said harshly, demanding his attention.
He forced his lungs to function. A deep breath helped clear his brain, but the pain made him lash out. “Shit. Are you happy now, Rach?”
“Good God, Zach. You’ve been shot!” his sister, the rocket scientist, said.
“Yeah. I noticed,” he said dryly.
Rachel pried his fingers from his arm. Maddie looked like she wanted to look away but couldn’t. She gasped. Zach looked down and saw blood soaking his sleeve. Maddie made a hitching noise in her throat. Zach looked back at her and saw her gag, obviously trying not to throw up over the damage she’d caused. Since he was directly in the line of fire, he appreciated the effort.
Zach looked back at the wound. In spite of the pain, he felt detached. “It ain’t that bad. I think it done went clean through.”
Rachel shook her head, “Zachariah—” Her lips tightening in what looked like disgust. “How come you’re the only one of my brothers who ever gets shot?”
“He—he’s been shot before?” Maddie asked then shrank back when Rachel shot her a look that would have flash-froze a lake. A rush of protective instincts washed over Zach.
“Maddie, c’mere.”
It took her a few seconds to meet his eyes. She looked like a pup who’d chewed up the furniture and knew she was going to get a whipping.
“Come on. C’mere,” Zach coaxed, holding out his uninjured arm to encourage her. When she got there, he wrapped his arm around her shoulders and pulled her tight against his side.
Rachel didn’t miss his display of forgiveness. Her eyes flashed at the way Zach held Maddie, but she turned her attention back to his wounded arm without comment. She wiggled two fingers into the hole in his sleeve and pulled. The bloody fabric resisted for a moment then ripped open under the pressure, giving her a better look at the wound.
Zach hissed in a breath through clenched teeth as she poked at his arm.
“You’re right. Looks like it went through clean.” Rachel looked at him with exasperation. “Why the hell can’t you ever stay outta trouble?”
Her lack of tenderness or pity would normally have pissed him off, but he was having trouble with any emotion stronger than annoyance.
Must be the shock
. In any case, tenderness and pity weren’t Rachel’s strong suits. “I don’t get in any more trouble than any of the other boys. And you ain’t my mamma, so stop acting like the barnyard hen.”
Rachel sat back on her heels, crisis obviously over as far as she was concerned. “Well, what do you want to do about it?”
“Get it properly dressed for starters.”
Rachel’s eyes narrowed. “I meant about
her
.”
“Oh.” He paused for a half a beat. “Rachel, this is Maddie. Maddie, this is my sister Rachel. She’s not always the bitch she’s acting like tonight.”
Rachel didn’t let his wound stop her from retaliating. She punched him in his shoulder, her vexation plain in the effort she put into it.
“Ow!” Zach flinched even before the pain hit. A second later, it stole his breath as he went blind from it for several long moments.
Through the ringing in his ears, he barely heard Rachel say, “Stay here. I’ll go get the medical kit from the office.” She pushed herself to her feet. “You—Maddie. Can you get him up on the bed without wanting to shoot him again?”
Maddie flushed, plainly embarrassed by the jab. Zach’s anger at his sister flared. What right did she have pointing fingers? If she’d kept her nose out of his business, he’d be getting laid now instead of bleeding all over the bedspread he was leaning against.
“Rachel.” He put a note of threat in his voice. A warning that she needed to mind her manners.
She heeded him enough to not say anything more.
When she scooped up the gun, Maddie made a sound deep in her throat that sounded like a strangled objection, then Rachel was out in the hall, calming the neighboring guests, telling them everything was under control.
“Don’t worry. She won’t turn you in.” He hoped he was right.
“The gun’s stolen.” The statement was barely whispered.
“What?”
“Well, not stolen exactly.” Below worried eyes, she bit her lip. “Missing. But if the police identify it …”
God, how much trouble was she in
? “Who else have you shot with it?” It was a stupid question, meant to lighten the mood, but the tears welling her eyes told him he’d failed.
“No one. I swear. Oh, God, Zach—”
“Hey,” he tilted her chin up. “None of that. I don’t need you guilt ridden over this.”
“But I shot you.”
Like he hadn’t noticed.
“Yeah, well … yeah.” He took a deep, shaky breath. “I think you’d best not still be here when Rach gets back. Can you give me a hand up?”
Maddie scrambled to her feet, taking the arm he held out to her, and heaved him onto his feet. He stood just long enough to make sure the bed would be under him before he sat.
“Shouldn’t you lie down?” Maddie asked.
“Would you want to be lying defenseless while Rachel worked on you?”
Maddie emitted a bark of near-hysterical laughter. “No. No, I wouldn’t.”
A wash of pain made him light-headed for a moment. When his eyes focused again, she looked so lost and defenseless he couldn’t stand it. “What am I going to do with you, Maddie?”
She swallowed but her voice was thick with fear. “Are you going to turn me in?”
Zach shifted on the bed. Pain shot up his arm, delaying his response.
She closed her eyes as though she couldn’t look at him. “I really didn’t mean to shoot you. I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry. Please don’t turn me in for shooting you.”
He hated that she was begging him, and when she opened her eyes, her vulnerability twisted his heart. “Do you really have a babysitter waiting for you?”
“I do.”
He didn’t believe she’d intended to shoot him. She’d been frightened into it by Rachel’s untimely arrival, but the fact remained that she felt threatened enough to carry a gun. What had her so scared?
“You’re really in a lot of trouble, ain’tcha?” he asked, not really expecting an answer.