Secret Guardian (18 page)

When the man tried to shoot the rifle again, Ethan’s fist connected with the side of his face just as the gun exploded.

Ethan could hear the screams of people, and knew the whole stadium was in chaos, but didn’t stop to see if anyone on the stage was hurt. He braced himself for the fight that was sure to come.

“You’ve ruined our plans. You’ve been a thorn in our sides since the beginning when I tried to snatch Miss Rhodes in Rio.”

Ethan thought back to the first night he’d followed Ann out of the hotel. It was the night Heitor had approached her outside. Heitor must have been trying to lure her away with a false story.

“Why take her?”

“
With her we would have leverage over the Senator. We know he would do anything to get his daughter back, including dropping out of the race.”

“Why are you so adamant about the senator dropping out?” He circled the man, waiting for a moment to spring.

“His running mate has better plans that will benefit my employer much more.”

“Who is your employer?”

Heitor laughed. “You think I would be stupid enough to tell you?”

Heitor rushed towards him. Ethan’s fist arched down trying to connect with the man’s face, but this time Heitor blocked it and threw himself towards Ethan. The man’s punches were as brutal as his own, catching Ethan off guard. He had to concentrate to keep each blow from connecting with his face or ribs, where he could feel blood oozing down his side.

He connected a few good blows, sending Heitor falling over a row of seats. When he came up, Ethan noticed the gun in his hand just before he felt the bullet connect.

Ethan threw himself at the man, not waiting. He hit him with all his strength until, finally, he had the man pinned and was straddling him. Blood was dripping down Heitor’s unconscious face as Ethan leaned over him.

Ethan’s vision blurred just as two uniform cops came running into the room, their guns drawn and pointing right at him. Ethan raised his hands as far as he could, until the pain was too much. He told them he was security right before he passed out.

The security guards that had grabbed Ann dragged her halfway across the field as she screamed and kicked at them. She tried to tell them she was the senator’s daughter, but they just didn’t listen. Finally they let her go after her father rushed forward and yelled at them.

She looked frantically around for Ethan. She asked all the security team and no one seemed to know where he was.

Her father’s face needed a few stitches, so they rode together to the hospital. Ann was so concerned about Ethan she didn’t even care that Coleen sat in the back of the car and cried the entire time. She’d complained about being so close to dying that Ann had rolled her eyes. Coleen hadn’t even been up on the stage. But she listened as her father comforted her the entire trip to the hospital.

They took her father to a private ER room, and Coleen followed along. Ann was sitting in the waiting area alone when she heard a loud voice and followed it to another room in the ER. She was shocked to see Ethan lying on a gurney, screaming and fighting off a nurse and doctor. Rushing to his side, she noticed all the blood and felt herself turning pale.

“Oh my God, Ethan! Are you okay?” She tried to push the nurse who was trying to hold Ethan down out of the way. When he saw her, he went still.

“You’re okay?” he asked at the same time. She nodded her head and then noticed the hole in his chest as the doctor tried to hold his hands over the open wound. Then she noticed blood dripping from a large gash in his side.

“Ethan! You’ve been shot!” He smiled a little at her obvious assessment.

“I’ve had worse. I just needed to know that you were all right. What are you doing here?” he asked. She could see his color slowly starting to drain. His eyes looked cloudy and she could tell he was slowly losing focus. “My father needed stitches; he was hit by some breaking glass. He’s all right. Everyone else is all right.” The nurse moved aside so she could hold his hand. Ann watched as she moved to his other side and started helping the doctor who was trying to stop the bleeding.

“We need to get Mr. Knight into surgery. Are you his…?”

“Wife, she’s my wife. I want her in recovery, I want her there when I wake up,” Ethan growled before she watched his eyes slide closed.

“Sorry, Mrs. Knight, we’ve given him something to knock him out. He was putting up quite a fight,” the young nurse apologized.

“How … How bad is it?” she asked the doctor as they started to wheel him down the aisle.

“We’ll know more once we get inside. Please, wait just there. I’ll come find you once we know more.” He pointed towards a private waiting area.

Over the next three hours, Ann sat in the waiting room with her father and Coleen. Blake showed up shortly after with Javan and everyone sat waiting. Coleen had gone and gotten them some takeout dinner and coffee. But for the most part, everyone sat in silence. Even Blake sat still. Well, as still as a teenage boy could. Of course it helped that he had his PSP to play, but she could tell he was as worried as everyone else. This was his hero that was hurt, the man that had saved him five years ago. The man that had saved her just a few weeks ago. The man who had just saved her father tonight.

In the course of the evening, the police came in to interview her. She explained how they had found out about the assassination attempt, and w
hy Ethan was there in the room with the two men, Paul and Heitor. She told them she didn’t know anything more than that. She’d arranged with her boss, Anthony, to have a copy of the tapes taken to the station for evidence.

“I can tell you both men are currently in the hospital. Actually, just down the hallway. Don’t worry, they are under guard. Your husband did quite a number on them.”

She smiled slightly, thinking about the possibility of actually being Ethan’s wife. It felt good to have people talk to her as if she was already married to him.

She didn’t know what she’d do if he died. After the police left, she sat down and t
ears silently slid down her face. Her father walked over and wrapped his arm around her. His forehead was bandaged and it appeared he’d have a black eye in the morning.

She couldn’t stop worrying. She didn’t know how extensive Ethan’s wound were, but she did know that any bullet to the chest could be a death sentence.

She took the time and called his parents on her cell phone to update them on what was going on. They told her they would fly down on the next available flight and would call Roberta and Ric and let them know.

She was pacing the floor almost three hours later, when the doctor came back in. “Mrs. Knight?”

Everyone in the room looked at her as she rushed over to the man.

“How is he?”

“He’s stable. We have him in the ICU. You’ll be able to see him in a few minutes. The nurse will come in and take you back to him. He was lucky. The bullet shattered a few ribs and bounced off, leaving a trail we had to follow, but it finally rested in the back of a rib and we were able to remove it and stop all the bleeding. The knife wound shattered another rib on his other side. He’ll be sore and he’ll need to stay off his feet for a few months, but he’ll recover.”

She closed her eyes and released a sigh of relief.

E
than watched Ann fluff his pillows for what seemed like the hundredth time. He smiled, enjoying her pampering him. He knew she was just concerned about him and he enjoyed every minute of it. It had been a close one. So close he’d made a decision, one he had yet to talk to her about. There had hardly been a time when they were alone.

When he’d woken in the ICU, she was there and so were a half dozen nurses. Then when he’d come to again, he’d been in a private room with his parents hovering over him. It had been nice having them there, but he wished for some time alone with Ann.

Then
she had left for the evening, promising she’d be back first thing in the morning. She had walked in five minutes after his parents and Roberta had. Now her family was there, chatting and acting like he was a hero.

Blake was there as well. The kid had grown tall, but still looked the same. Ethan could tell he was glad he was okay, even if he played it cool. Javan had even stopped by at one point before heading out to his next job somewhere exotic.

Ethan had had enough of running and being shot at in his life. He knew he had a good team of men that would easily take the field for all the upcoming jobs. He could afford to sit back and play boss for a while. It’s what he’d always known would happen one day. That’s why he’d been smart enough to hire his close buddies to work with him. Every one of them he could trust, completely.

He knew what he wanted now, and she was sitting in the corner smiling at him. He only needed a minute to be alone with her. So far, it just wasn’t happening.

Ann’s father had clued him in on what was happening with Heitor and Paul. They had both been released from the hospital into police custody. Apparently Paul had been the brains behind the whole deal. The plan had been to kidnap Ann in Rio and hold her until her father resigned from the race.

Ann was doing an interview that evening with her father, where more details of the whole ordeal would be revealed.

Ethan had known when he’d seen Paul in the private booth that he’d been the one pulling the strings. The man had bothered Ann the night of the party, and he wished he would have checked him out more then. Apparently his whole background check had been pieced together.

Heitor on the other hand had targeted Ann that first night, trying to get her by herself. Then when she’d shown
up the next day with the team, he’d tried to just back out. Ethan remembered the man being agitated about seeing the three men with her. He should have known then that something was up.

Honestly, when he thought about it, the whole thing had been his fault. If he’d just been better at his job, he would have seen through the man during his interview. He’d accounted for the man’s nerves as fear of being found out.

Spending a lot of his time in the hospital bed, his mind wandered over the whole adventure. If he had a chance to go back and change anything, he knew he wouldn’t.

He replayed images of Ann standing under the waterfall, smiling. Of her leaning against a tree with a shocked look as he sliced the snake in half. Her smiling
as she lay in the sun in Lima. Of her laughing with his parents on the beach.

He looked over at her now as she talked to her father across the small hospital room. No, he wouldn’t change a thing.

Ann had had a lot to deal with over the last few days. With Ethan in the hospital she had taken time off from work. Even after everything that had happened, Dave had wanted to run her story. Of course they had edited the tapes and used footage of the shooting along with an exclusive interview from her father. She had done the interview personally. Usually she didn’t mix her personal life with interviews, but Dave and Anthony had asked her, and her father had wanted her to do it. Especially since it was such an important interview.

Her father’s running mate had dropped out in light of some new information brought to their attention by her father’s old assistant, Paul. Heitor had yet to talk, but Paul was chatting away. He actually wanted an exclusive interview with Ann, where he promised to tell all. She turned it down.

After the interview aired, she told Dave and Anthony that she was taking a month off. They’d both smiled at her and agreed that she deserved it.

She enjoyed seeing Ethan’s family again and since they were there, she had enlisted them to help her out. His mother almost jumped for joy when Ann explained her plans. Roberta had laughed and eagerly joined in the coup.

Next she had some planning to do. She’d found out some other important information and had set up a schedule. Now all she needed to do was kidnap an ex-Special Forces agent.

Over the next few days, Ethan still couldn’t find the right moment to talk to her. There were plenty of times they were alone, but it just didn’t feel right.

Every time he’d open his mouth to say something, she’d look at him a certain way and he’d shut his mouth again. Or he’d end up saying something completely different.

The nurses had wrapped his ribs tightly and frequently checked his incision where they’d removed the bullet.

He was tired of being poked and checked. All he wanted to do was go home with Ann. To start their new lives together.

His family stayed for two days, and he enjoyed seeing everyone again, though being stuck in a hospital room wasn’t really his idea of enjoying a visit from them.

After they left to go back home the place almost felt empty.
Finally, a day later, he was released from the hospital. He was so excited to get away from all the needles and nurses, he hadn’t quite thought about what was next.

A nurse had wheeled him out of the hospital and right into Ann’s car, so he found himself sitting in her car on the way to her condo. Since he was still very weak from all the pain medications they had him on, he rested his head back and thought about his plans.

Maybe he’d ask her over dinner? Maybe when they were lying in bed? He thought of a million words he wanted to say to her, a million different ways to ask her to take a chance on him. Could someone like her ever be happy with someone like him? Sure, he’d had his share of adventure, but now he was looking forward to a future minus all the running and guns. Would she still find him worth it?

He could just imagine them sitting in front of the fireplace in Washington. Snuggling up on the couch watching movies. Or her cooking in the kitchen while he sat and watched. Maybe having a family barbeque. Then, maybe in a year, they’d have children. Images flashed through his mind of kids running in the fields. Of him teaching a son or a daughter how to fish.

They would have her blue eyes and her smile. He smiled thinking about it. Maybe their kids and Rose would be close. Cousins. He smiled again. Yeah, he could get used to the idea of kids with Ann.

He knew he still had a few loose ends to tie up, but he’d tried to take care of most of them over the phone before he’d left the hospital.

Running his own security business from home was going to be a lot different than what he’d been doing over the last few years. He was lucky the only jobs that he’d lined up had already been assigned out to one of his teams.

He’d given Javan the lead so he could sit back and enjoy some of his time alone with Ann. And his business wasn’t hurting for jobs. He’d actually had to turn several down. Now his five-man crew was booked solid for the next year. Just because he was sitting on the sidelines didn’t mean he couldn’t control everything. He was actually looking forward to being a real boss and not just the lead in a job.

He knew it was going to be a big change for him, but he was up for the challenge. He just wondered if Ann was up for having him around full time.

Since he’d met her a few months ago, he hadn’t really let her out of his sight. And now he realized he’d enjoyed having her there. She’d changed so many things in him that he realized he was no longer the same person he’d been three months ago. Oh, he still felt the need for adventure. But the adventure he was seeking wasn’t the bullets and bad guy kind. The adventure he wanted was waking up next to Ann and seeing how many ways he could make her smile. How often he could make her laugh.

He knew he’d always want to travel, but he also knew that he wanted to be home. And he thought of home as being wherever she was. Maybe she’d want to stay in Austin. Maybe they’d call Washington home. The place didn’t really matter to him anymore. What mattered was that he’d be able to be with her.

When he felt the car slowing, he opened his eyes and was shocked to see where they were. The private jet sat ready for takeoff. He looked over to Ann, who was smiling back at him.

“What are we doing here?”

“Well, the doctor said three weeks of rest, so I booked us a flight somewhere where I know you’ll get all the rest you need.”

She got out of the car and walked around to help him out. It wasn’t that he couldn’t get out himself, it was just that she liked to help, so he let her.

“Where would that be?”

“Oh, no! You’ll just have to wait and see.” She walked around and pulled out two large bags and handed them to the luggage handler, who quickly whisked them away to the waiting jet. He did a double take and realized it was
his
private jet sitting there, the one they’d used on the way back from Peru.

So, some of his secrets must have gotten out of the bag. She turned and smiled at him.

“Yes, I found out who you had to rescue to get that,” she said, pointing over her shoulder at his jet. Then she held out her hand, waiting for him to take it. He took it and pulled her close, ignoring the sharp pain in both of his sides. He hugged her, enjoying the rich smell of her dark hair and the feel of her in his arms.