Forbidden (Southern Comfort) by O'Neill, Clark (free ebook reader txt) 📗

fumbled to do what he needed to with his left hand before lying back down on his stretcher.  Walker would shoot him in a heartbeat if he had any idea that Clay was mobile.

So when Walker came back to the vehicle, messed around with the gas pedal until Clay heard it revving, he lay perfectly still and pretended to be the next thing to catatonic.

Walker crawled into the back, and Clay could sense him looking at him, no doubt assessing to make certain he was out.

But the bastard hit his arm again, just for good measure.

It took everything Clay had not to react.

Grunting in apparent satisfaction, the man turned away and began to remove the restraints holding Max.  He obviously planned on taking him with him.

Clay didn’t waste any time.  He reached beside him, pulled the portable defibrillator from where he’d stashed it, ignored the screaming agony in his arm and delivered what he hoped were a billion volts.

Walker yelled hoarsely, his body jumping with the shock, and fell backwards almost on top of Clay.  The gun he’d been holding clattered to the metal floor beneath Max’s stretcher.

Pushing the stunned man aside, Clay scrambled toward the weapon, pitching forward when Walker landed heavily against his back.  They went down hard, knocking into Max’s stretcher, which tilted but held onto Max.  Luckily Walker hadn’t managed to undo the straps before Clay hit him.

Clay’s left hand snaked toward the weapon as his kidney seemed to explode from a short-armed punch. Gasping, he threw his left elbow back until it connected with Walker’s ribcage. Shifting his weight to his right forearm, he felt the snapped bone poke through his skin, and gritted his teeth against the liquid rush of pain that threatened to pull him under. Gray dots swimming at the edges of his vision, he groped blindly along the floor for the gun, stretching his abused fingers until he felt the familiar shape.  He’d just managed to wrap his hand around it when Walker’s right arm formed a noose around his neck.

Max, Clay could only think as his vision blurred, his head pounded.  And feeling that rush of primal fear, slammed his head into Walker’s nose.  Blood spurted, thick and warm, but the chokehold didn’t lessen.  And when Walker fell backward toward the ambulance’s front, he managed to drag Clay with him.

Twisting, striving to get the gun aimed, Clay’s knee hit the gearshift and the ambulance started to roll. Somewhere in his adrenaline-fueled brain, he realized that was definitely not good.  Using every bit of the strength he had left, Clay heaved his body until they were face to face. The gun went off in his hand just as the ambulance hit the pond.

Through the rush of dirty water came the still-distant wailing of sirens.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

THE touch of soft lips on his cheek stirred Clay, and he was conscious of the purple bear being tucked into the crook of his good arm.

Again.

“Max.”  Tate’s voice softly scolded, although it was still too soon after their hellish ordeal for her to work up any real irritation with her son.  Still, she’d told him several times to stay out of her room when Clay was sleeping, but the child usually weaseled his way up here whenever she turned her back.  With the absence of guests at the usually busy inn, Clay guessed Max was a little bit bored.

Thank God.

Thank God he was here, safe and sound, enduring nothing more traumatic than a healthy case of childish doldrums, rather than blown to pieces, subjected to Walker’s twisted sense of father/son bonding, or lying on the bottom of a cow pasture’s pond.

All three outcomes had been so close…

“It’s okay,” Clay reassured Tate, waking enough to give Max a conspiratorial smile.  Men folk had to stick together.  He held his left hand out, palm up, and Max walloped him with a low five.  Despite the fact that Clay was recuperating from complicated surgery to repair the compound fracture in his arm, not to mention almost drowning, Max didn’t hold off on the heat.  He grinned at Clay in a what do you think about THEM apples kind of way, and Clay laughed his heartfelt approval.  The kid was unbelievably adorable.

Then he shifted his gaze toward the end of the bed, where Tate was no doubt about to remonstrate Max for not being careful enough of Clay’s condition.

Well, screw that.

He was tired of feeling like an invalid, and heartily sick of her treating him like spun glass.  They hadn’t had sex in over a week.  His arm wasn’t working, for God’s sake.  Not his…

The snarky look on her face told him that she had guessed what he was thinking.

He gave her his best I’m innocent grin.

From her answering yeah, right expression it was obvious she didn’t believe him.

“Tonight,” she promised softly as she hustled Max from the room, leaving Clay wondering not for the first time over how quickly they’d established that telepathy.  “If you behave yourself now.”

And he guessed he deserved that one.  Yesterday, against doctor’s orders (what did Justin know, anyway?) he’d been determined to take a real shower.  Not that he hadn’t enjoyed the sponge bath Tate had given him – in fact he’d enjoyed it a little too much – but a man needed a little independence.  If he’d waited until today, when he was supposedly going to be steadier on his feet, he probably wouldn’t have slipped and bruised his ass.

Tate’s smirk – showing that once again, she knew where his thoughts had drifted – probably should have been offensive, but he was too damn happy with that bait she’d dangled in front of him to worry about a little thing like pride.  He blasted her with a full eyebrow wiggle/hip thrust and she laughed as she closed the door behind her.

Dear God, he loved that woman.

Yep, he was happy as a damn clam.

Despite the fact that not everything had gone quite as planned.

Walker was still alive.

The bastard was in a coma, true,