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

but he was still sucking up oxygen.  And Clay suspected it wasn’t very humanitarian of him to wish that wasn’t the case.  The bullet discharged from the weapon they’d struggled over hit Walker in the chest, doing extensive damage, but apparently not enough.  What kind of tenacious asshole survives being shot at point blank range, anyway?  In retrospect, maybe he should have left that gear shift alone and let the ambulance keep rolling into the pond.  Of course, there was always the fact that he and Max might have drowned to consider.  So yeah, he guessed he’d made the right move.

But Walker’s continued presence on earth still grated.  When he woke up – if he woke up – they’d all have to go through the misery of a trial.  There was no question of the man being convicted; the evidence was too overwhelming – including the fact that he’d killed one of the Charleston PD snipers in order to get the man’s rifle and fire off that igniting shot into the farmhouse.  Then left the man lying mortally wounded while he stripped him bare for his uniform, so that he could blend in with the chaotic crowd.

Murder, attempted murder, kidnapping, racketeering, arson… the charges Walker faced were too numerous to list.  If he ever regained consciousness, he’d face either the death penalty or a life in prison.

On second thought, given the way Clay suspected the man felt about prison, maybe things had worked out for the best after all.

Josh Harding was going to make it.  He faced a long, hard recovery given the severity of his injuries, but at least the younger man was alive.

And Casey Rodriguez – Clay was so proud of her. Of her spirit in the face of what she’d endured.  He’d stopped in to see her before he left the hospital the other day, and was humbled by her amazing resilience.  She, also, would have a lengthy path to full physical recovery, and her emotional scars would probably last forever.  No amount of therapy could ever fully make the memory of what happened to her go away.  But with the right treatment, the right support, she’d learn to live with the scars and the memories.  In fact, Clay had already seen to it that she’d have regular access to one of his colleagues.  And to help ease her stay in the hospital, he’d gotten her that iPhone she’d wanted for her birthday.

He owed her so damn much.

He strongly suspected that Walker’s initial plan was to blow up the house with both of the kids in it.  When he’d spotted Casey and Max through the scope of the rifle, he’d probably resorted to plan B.

And Rogan was on the road to recovery.  Like Clay he’d suffered a broken arm, and several other injuries to boot, not to mention the blow to his soul.  Sympathetic to his plight, Kim had spent an inordinate amount of time “debriefing” Tate’s cousin in his hospital room.

Yeah, like Clay was falling for that.

Who would have guessed his anal-retentive, freakishly neat friend would go for a pirate?  But then Rogan was pretty damn anal about some things himself, so maybe there was something to the attraction.

And speaking of attraction…

He smiled as Tate came back into the room.

She was looking incredibly lovely this morning, carrying a tray loaded with mouth-watering breakfast items, wearing her cute little shorty pajamas and casually mussed hair.

He could stand waking up to that every day.

For the next fifty or so years.

“Hi.”

Tate smiled at Clay’s expression, giving him a warm hello with her eyes.  He still looked a little battered, a little less than robust, but his appetite seemed to be coming back.  Of course it probably wasn’t the food he was eyeing so hungrily.  She set the tray on the nightstand and sat down.

“Sorry about Max waking you up again.  I’m afraid he’s a little bit… restless.”

Clay wiped his I want to have sex expression off his face and took her hand into his good one.

“It’s going to be tough for him, for a little while, to adjust to all that’s going on.  Even though he doesn’t remember anything, he knows something happened, and that it was bad.  Telling him truthfully about some of the dangers he faced was the right decision to make.”

Tate had agonized over that one.  When he’d awakened in the hospital, Max had so many questions, that she didn’t know how to answer.  How do you tell a little boy that there really are monsters in the world?  But Clay had encouraged her to be mostly honest.  It would give Max a greater sense of well-being if he understood a basic outline of what happened.  The truth usually wasn’t quite as fear-inspiring as what could fester in the imagination.

And given his own injuries, and those of both Clay and Rogan, it had been impossible to keep him from the truth.  When she’d connected what happened to him with the girl who’d gone missing from the carnival, it had allowed him a degree of understanding.  And when she’d told him how very, very hard Kathleen and Clay and the others had worked to find him, it helped restore his sense of security.  There might be monsters in the world, but there were good guys who helped put the monsters away.

One of the only things Tate hadn’t told him was about the “old lady” who’d stayed at the Inn.  He couldn’t remember anything about that, thank God, and she wasn’t about to tell him.  This was his home, after all. She didn’t want him to feel it wasn’t safe.

But she couldn’t help feeling that way herself.

It was the reason the inn remained closed.

“I know you don’t want to hear this, but he’ll heal faster the quicker things seem normal.”  Clay stroked her fingers.  “Have you given any more thought to what you’re going to do?  When you might reopen?”

Tate sighed, feeling utterly defeated.  She and her mother had gone over this last night.  Maggie, horrified by what