The Unexpected Hero Page 17
Gage continued, reading the man his rights, and even going so far as to ask in so many words if he wanted an attorney first.
Waters shook his head. “A lawyer will just get in the way. I want to tell this bitch the truth.”
Gage hesitated. “Maybe I should stay in here.”
Krissie shook her head. “No need. I’ve handled worse than he can dish out.”
“Okay then.”
She took the chair on the far side of the table and waited until Gage had closed the door. She thought, in the deep silence, that she could almost hear the hum of the video cameras, the beat of her own heart.
Then Charlie stirred and his leg irons clanked.
“So tell me,” she said, keeping her voice level. Out of sight, her hands knotted into fists.
“You killed my brother.”
“I did?”
“Thomas Waters. Remember him?”
She hesitated. “Charlie, I need more information. I’ve taken care of thousands of people.”
He leaned forward as far as he could. “At the VA hospital in Denver. Double amputee. Brain injury.”
“There were a lot of those.” She studied his face and suddenly knew why she had thought he was familiar. And as soon as she made that connection, she remembered his brother. “I remember. You and I talked about Conard County once or twice,” she said. “Your brother wasn’t doing well.”
“He died under your care!” Charlie almost spat the words.
“Unfortunately, that happened too many times.”
“Yeah. Yeah, didn’t it?”
“What do you mean by that?”
Charlie’s anger drew his lips back into a snarl. “Tommy died, and by the time I got to the VA and started asking questions, you were gone. Quit they said. They wouldn’t answer my questions, and I couldn’t find you. But I’m smart.”
“I’m sure you are.” She hoped he couldn’t tell how hard her heart was hammering.
“I hunted up your boyfriend.”
At that her heart slammed. “My boyfriend? I broke off with him ages ago.”
“Yeah, but I met him once, when he came to take you to lunch. I saw you with him, I even talked to him. So I found him and I told him I wanted to know why the hell my brother died and I needed to talk to you. And you know what he said to me?”
“How could I know?”
“He said, ‘Oh, you’ll never find out the truth. Sometimes these doctors and nurses just off the bad cases. They call it euthanasia.’”
Krissie gasped then, and her world seemed to narrow to a pinprick of light. In what stupid moment had she trusted Al with that private fear? In what horrible moment of weakness had she even discussed with that man that upon rare occasion she thought it might have happened? Not at the VA, but in the field hospitals? God, she must have been having some kind of flashback.
Charlie suddenly sat back, looking deflated. “See, you know what I’m talking about. So my brother wasn’t doing well. But he was still alive. And when your boyfriend said that, I remember you telling me not to hope too hard because Tommy had such severe seizures and they seemed to be getting worse, and then you quit one day after he died? Do I need a roadmap?”
Krissie fought her way back from shock, taking a deep breath and then another. Finally she said, “Oh, Charlie, I swear I never killed anyone. I swear I never did anything to hurt your brother.”
For the first time a shadow of doubt crossed his face. “You did. I know you must have.”
“No, I swear I never did. The last thing I did for him medically was give him an injection to stop his seizure. The very injection his doctor ordered. The very injection he had gotten during other seizures. But this time the seizure didn’t stop. He quit breathing. The crash team tried to bring him back….”
Tears were running down her face now, and she didn’t bother to wipe them away. “I didn’t kill your brother, Charlie. War killed your brother. And I’m so, so sorry.”
She saw the first tear appear on his eyelash. Just one. And in that instant, he looked so wounded and hurt that she wanted to gather him in her arms.
All of sudden, Gage was there, standing beside her, gripping her shoulder in support.
“Charlie,” Gage said gently, “why did you kill those two patients?”
The young man looked up, his face slack now. “So people would see she’s a murderer.”
Chapter 14
The next twenty-four hours passed in a dazed blur. Krissie pulled back into some place inside herself, that place where you shut everything else out in order to deal with something too huge to grasp all at once.
Her father and mother stopped by, but only briefly, to hug her and tell her they loved her.
But David remained with her. He cancelled her shift, he was there any time she looked up, he made sure she ate. In short he babied her.
But the following morning, when she woke up and found he’d moved the Kokopelli table so it was over by the window with the curtains tossing in the morning breeze and that the thermal carafe was waiting there for her along with a mug, she started to smile again.
The delicious smell of bacon issued from the kitchen.
“And you’re supposed to be a doctor,” she called out.
He leaned around the corner. “Okay, I promise we’ll jog it or hike it off later, but there’s nothing like comfort food.”
“You take too much comfort in animal fat.”
“So sue me.” He disappeared again for a minute, she heard a pan clatter, and then he returned with a folded newspaper. “I thought this might brighten your morning and add spice to your coffee.”
He snapped it open and laid it on the table in front of her, then returned whistling to the kitchen.
The big, bold headline jumped up at her: Local nurse captures killer.
Disbelieving, she began to read. “Local nurse Kristin Tate became a hero yesterday when she assisted the sheriff’s department in apprehending…”
She skipped to the next paragraph to learn that she had apparently been working undercover for the sheriff’s department, risking her own life to prevent further murders.
Her jaw dropped and she looked up to find David grinning like a Cheshire cat as he leaned on the doorjamb between the living area and kitchen.
“I’m no hero,” she said.
“Gage told you that you weren’t going to suffer from the rumors. He kept his word. Besides, the story is all true.” He started walking toward her. “You assisted, you were brave, you manhandled the bad guy pretty good for a girl—”
“For a girl?”
He started laughing. “I figured that would rile you. Truth is, Krissie, whether you want to admit it or not, you’re everything the paper says. My hero.” Bending, he stole a quick kiss.
“Do I smell bacon burning?”
He pulled away in an instant and ran to the kitchen.
Krissie was smiling, though, as she looked down at the paper again. The story, she thought, was embarrassingly overblown, but indeed, Gage had kept his promise. She could hold her head up, and there’d be no whispering campaign of any kind, no residue of questions to follow her through life. Thank you, Gage.
David returned with two plates and placed them on the table. They were both mounded with eggs, bacon and buttered toast. She started to shake her head, though a smile quivered at the corners of her mouth.
He sat facing her. “Don’t even say it. My professional eye tells me that you’re at least ten pounds underweight, and as you well know, being underweight can be as unhealthy as being overweight.”
“And somehow that makes this a healthy breakfast?” But the smile was tugging harder at the corners of her mouth.
He grinned. “You can reform me later. Dear heart, you haven’t eaten enough in the last twenty-four hours to keep a sparrow alive. So enjoy the wicked calories, and I’ll promise vegetarian for dinner tonight if your conscience demands it.”
“Actually, I’d like Chinese.”
At th
at, he put his chin in his palm. “How many miles do I have to drive to get your Chinese?”
“You don’t. I cook it.”
“Much better for the environment. Your dad’s been calling frequently. Again while you were in the shower. I told him to come on over with your mom a little later.”
“Thanks. I was in such a fog yesterday, I hardly remember talking to them.”
“Trust me, when it comes to your well-being, your dad and mom have very sharp eyes. I’m under orders to let you rest.”
“As if you wouldn’t have come up with that on your own.”
“Well—” he gave a mischievous smile “—it might have occurred to me. But the former sheriff has been checking up to make sure I was following orders.”
“He would.”
“He’s going to make a great father-in-law.”
Krissie dropped her fork, splattering food on the table. “David…” She could only look at him, stunned.
He waved a hand. “Just let me finish. Then you can tell me to take a hike.”
She barely managed a nod, as something began to crack open inside of her, something that hurt as it struggled its way out.
“I knew you were growing on me,” he said, his expression serious now. “You know, sort of like mold.”
She couldn’t even laugh at the attempted humor. Apparently he couldn’t either.
“Hell,” he said, “this is a great way to start. Let me begin again.” He drew a breath, then resumed.
“Okay,” he said. “I knew I was getting attached to you. You may have even noticed that at one point, I tried to stay away. I figured it was all happening too fast, I didn’t know you well, yada yada. You can fill in the blanks, I’m sure.”
She gave him a jerky nod.
“But then…” He shrugged. “Come to the point, Marcus. The fact is, the other night when I could have lost you, I couldn’t play games with myself any more. Or with you. I’m in love with you.”
Krissie drew a sharp breath.
“I know I’m no catch,” he went on quickly. “I’ve got problems. Hell, the first time I laid eyes on you, I yelled at you about something that had nothing to do with you, really, and everything to do with me. I still have flashbacks apparently. I’m crusty, and sometimes difficult, and you hardly know me. So I’m not asking you to commit to anything yet. Just give me a chance, Krissie. Give me a chance to prove myself to you. Give us a chance to see if your feelings for me can grow. Please.”
The blossoming within her remained painful, as it fought its way past the accretion of bad experiences, past the shell she had tried to forever bury it in so she could never again be hurt.
David opened his mouth again, as if he were about to say more, but she reached across the table, took his hand, and squeezed it hard.
“I want time to get to know you,” she said, holding on tight as emotions began to overwhelm her. “But…I already love you!”
And there, having said it, she released the tender bud into a full bloom of aching joy.
“I love you,” she said again.
The look on his face was both dazzled and dazzling, as if he couldn’t quite believe his good fortune, yet still felt a joy beyond words.
He pushed back quickly and came around the table to draw her up into his arms, hugging her so close it seemed he didn’t want even a molecule of air to separate them.
“You’ll have all the time you need,” he said huskily, looking down into her eyes. “All the time. But I’d like a Christmas wedding.”
She started to laugh, but then he stole her breath with a kiss that seemed to reach to her very soul, as if he wanted to weld them together for eternity.
When he lifted his head, she was seeing stars, the good kind.
“I kinda like that Christmas wedding idea myself,” she whispered.
“See, we agree on everything important.” His eyes danced, and she felt the smile grow on her face.
“When’s my dad coming?”
David scooped her up into his arms and carried her to the bedroom. “I really don’t care, but we have all the time we need. We have the rest of our lives.”
She snuggled into his embrace, pressing her face to the side of his neck. For the first time in a long time, she was actually looking forward to the rest of her life.
How much better could it be than two hearts beating as one?
ISBN: 978-1-4268-3599-5
THE UNEXPECTED HERO
Copyright © 2009 by Susan Civil Brown
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
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*Conard County
*Conard County
*Conard County
*Conard County
*Conard County
*Conard County
*Conard County
*Conard County
*Conard County
*Conard County
**Conard County: The Next Generation
**Conard County: The Next Generation
**Conard County: The Next Generation
*Conard County
*Conard County
*Conard County