Sophie Oak - One to Keep

“I won’t go, Stef, not without you,” Jen said, her heart filling up with love.

“That includes dying, Jennifer,” Stef said sternly. “You are not allowed to die on me. I will take it as extreme disobedience, and there will be some punishment.”

His voice was starting to shake, whether with emotion or pain or the combination of both, Jen wasn’t sure, but it didn’t matter. They were together. It brought her great strength. There was the sound of more gunfire outside, but the reports were getting further and further apart.

“It sounds like my men will be here soon,” Pushkin said. “Now, tell me where my bonds are and I will kill you quickly. Otherwise, you will join that unfortunate deputy.”

“Yes, I’d like to kill you for that, too.” Stef snarled.

“Someone needs to do something,” Holly said, crying. “I don’t think he’s going to make it.”

Alexei’s body was still, but his lips moved. He said something to Holly, who cried out and lightly slapped his shoulder.

She looked at Jen. “He won’t move. He says I have to hide behind him. I can’t get him off me, the big idiot. He’s going to die.”

“You are all going to die,” Pushkin said.

“Not if I can help it.” Logan’s voice was ragged, and his face brutalized past recognition, but he forced his body to move. He propped himself up in the doorway of the office and took aim.

Logan’s left arm hung at an odd angle, and his right trembled, but he held the gun level despite it all. “I don’t have a shot from here, Stef.”

“You don’t need one,” Stef said. “Nate will walk through that door any minute.”

Jen slipped her hand into her jeans pocket, her fingers curling around the whittling knife. Alexei had asked Holly for a distraction, but it looked like they needed another one. With Pushkin’s eyes on Stef and Logan, he wouldn’t notice that she was squirming a bit more.

When she had the knife out, she held it at her thigh so Stef would notice.

“I tire of this,” Pushkin said. Jen could feel that he was sweating now. He was starting to panic, and that could be very bad for her.

Stef’s eyes found the knife at her side, and he nodded, letting her know he was with her.

“I’m pretty fucking tired myself,” Logan spat out.

“Jennifer, Nate is going to walk through that door,” Stef repeated, as though his surety could make it happen. “He’s going to come in here, and we’re going to be fine. I love you with all my heart. Do you trust me, Jennifer?”

She nodded, far too emotional to speak. She heard the outer doors swinging open.

“Then do it now!” Stef shouted.

Jen raised her arm and plunged the small knife into Pushkin’s leg.

It didn’t go deep, but it was enough that he howled and reached for his leg. It was enough that he let go slightly, and Jen was able to drop down.

She felt the bullets hit Pushkin’s body. He jerked behind her once, and then twice, and then again. Jen covered her head, the ringing in her ears almost painful. She made herself as small a target as possible because Stef needed her out of the way.

The sound of bullets died away as the inner door burst open, and Nathan Wright’s voice boomed through the building.

“Stand down!” Nate shouted.

“There’s no one left to stand down, Sheriff. You are late to the party,” Stef said.

Jen felt his hand on her shoulder and looked up into relieved gray eyes. She jumped up and wrapped herself around him. He was here and alive, and that was all she could ask for. Stef’s arms tightened around her body, so tight she almost couldn’t breathe, but she wouldn’t complain. She needed him close.

“I love you, Jennifer.”

“I love you, Stef. I love you so much.” Nate and several others were moving in. “Zane, call a bus.”

“Why do we need a bus?” Jen asked, trying not to look at the bodies on the floor.

“It’s cop slang, love. He’s calling in an ambulance.” Max Harper strode into the room, a shotgun in his hands. “Is everything fine now? We killed everyone we needed to? ’Cause my wife is having a baby in the middle of a diner. I wouldn’t be here except Rachel made one of us come down here to save Stef’s butt, and she was yelling really loud. I’d like to make it back to see my son.”

The doctor pushed through the double doors. He had an apron on and held his hands up as though he’d just sanitized them and didn’t want to touch anything. “Better luck next time, Harper. You just had a girl. Sorry about that. I’m not real great with sonograms. Is there anyone left alive for me to fix?”

The doctor’s face fell, and suddenly all of his bravado was gone as he saw Holly trapped under Alexei’s body.

“Holly?” He ran to get to her.

“Please, Caleb. He saved me. You have to help him.” Chaos reigned as people poured into the small building. Zane helped Logan to sit. Nate checked the bodies. Max ran out, shouting something about his son not having a penis. Stef held her close, and she seemed far away from the horrors of the day.

“Don’t ever leave me.” His voice was a mere whisper in her ear.

“Never.”

Stef stretched slightly, trying to loosen up the tight feeling in his ribs. Jennifer turned and cocked a single eyebrow at him. He put his arm down.

“Hah!” Max said from his seat at Rachel’s bedside. He sat in what must be one of the world’s most uncomfortable chairs with a baby sleeping on his chest. “I saw that, Stef. You are just as pussy whipped as the rest of us. That is so good to know.”

“Maxwell Harper, that was rude.” Rachel threw a stare at Max that might actually peel paint off the walls.

Max clutched his daughter and nodded at his wife. “Yes, baby. It was rude. I am so sorry.” He turned back to Stef and pointed at himself. “See, we’re all the same.”

Jen chuckled beside him. “I just don’t want him to pull his stitches. He’s supposed to take me to Paris for our honeymoon.”

“Don’t you have to get married first?” Rye Harper asked as he walked in the room, followed by Callie. Both carried trays of food.

Stef reached out and grabbed a cookie. He thought it looked like one of Laura’s. She was famous for her chocolate chip cookies.

Almost everyone in Bliss had been in and out of the hospital over the last two days. They had come to coo over the new baby or offer support to Logan. They had come to sit with Holly while she held the hand of a man she barely knew, but had saved her life.

“Give them time, Rye,” Callie said, offering Rachel a sandwich.

“It takes a while to plan the kind of wedding Jen wants.” Stef turned to his fiancée. He had heard nothing about an elaborate wedding. “No Vegas, then?”

The smile on her face did funny things to his heart rate. “I suppose we could elope for some quickie wedding we’ll soon forget. Of course, the honeymoon would probably match it.” He snorted. His girl never let her opinions go unstated. It was one of the things he loved about her. If he forced her into a quickie wedding, he would get quickie sex. While he was pretty damn sure he could change her mind about that, he was an indulgent husband-to-be.

His father, on the other hand, hadn’t been willing to wait. He smiled as he thought about the fact that his father was in Vegas. He’d married Stella, and they would come back to Bliss in a week. Stella and his father would live in the manor house. Stella was finally coming home. Yes, he thought, a big wedding was just what they needed. “We’ll pull out all the stops then, love. We’ll have a wedding like this town has never seen.”

“That sounds like fun,” Rachel said, happily munching on her sandwich. She scooted up so Rye could slide in behind her. His arms wrapped around his wife as she leaned back against him. “Callie and I can help.”

Jennifer practically glowed. “You better. You’re my bridesmaids.

I need one more, though. I think I’ll ask Laura. Maybe she’ll teach me how to walk in five-inch heels.”

“Nope,” Stef said, pulling her close. God, it felt good to reach out and grab her whenever he wanted to. “I like you shorter than me.”

“Unless this wedding takes place in the next month or so, I’m going to be a whale.” Callie’s face turned down as Nate and Zane walked into the room. It was getting full fast.

“Never, babe. You’re going to be gorgeous all round and full of baby,” Zane promised, towering over his wife. Zane softened around Callie. The hard lines of his face fell away.

Stef wondered if he looked like that when he stared at his Jennifer.

He thought he probably did, but he didn’t care. She was his. She would be his always. It didn’t matter that he had to wait for the wedding. He already had another ceremony in mind. He’d talked to his friend in Dallas and had a private collaring ceremony planned.

Jennifer would never be a full-time slave, and he didn’t want that, but, oh, they would play. They would play for the rest of their lives.

“You want to see it?” Nate asked as he pulled out a file folder. In his hand was a small stack of what looked like certificates.

Stef felt his eyes go wide. He’d never seen one before, much less a stack. He ran his hand across the bonds that equaled enough money for Pushkin to kill for.

“That’s twenty million dollars?” Jen asked.

“Yes, these are untraceable security bonds. It’s a practice that dates back to the Civil War. It’s the only way to get this much money in a neat, movable pile without involving a bank. The US Federal Reserve is trying to get rid of them, but they’re still out there,” Stef replied. “From what Nate, Zane, and I have managed to figure out, this was payment for a long-lost painting Pushkin sold on the black market to a collector here in the US.”

“The Russian mob is making a fortune on black market masterpieces smuggled out of Germany during World War II. Pushkin used Renard to restore them, and then Renard acted as the middle man. He got the painting to the buyer and then smuggled the payment in bearer bonds to Russia via lesser paintings,” Nate explained.

“Hey!” Jennifer crossed her arms over her chest.

“Nathan knows nothing about art, love,” Stef said, kissing her neck. He loved the nape of her neck. It was soft and always smelled so good. He felt himself getting hard, but then he was always hard around her. “You have to discount his opinion.”

“Sorry, Jen, but he was planning on using your painting.

Apparently, he refused to ship twenty million dollars across two continents. Alexei and the dead guy were supposed to fly back with it.

They couldn’t just put it in a suitcase because airport security does random checks. This was the way he’d found to work it. He just hadn’t counted on you changing the paintings.”

“And that’s why he had me arrested.” Jen put two and two together. “He panicked. He had me arrested so he could search my place and take the bonds back.”

Stef knew what had happened. Renard had waited too long. “But I got there before he could. The minute I heard she’d been arrested, I had people at her place, packing her up to get her back to Bliss. Nate and I were there just a couple of hours later. Renard tried to be clever.”

He didn’t like to think about what could have happened to her. He was damn grateful Renard had chosen the path he had. He could have just killed her and taken the untraceable bonds the mob required as payment.

“It’s all right,” Jen said, as though sensing his thoughts. Her hand came up and smoothed across his cheek. “Everything is fine now.”

“The feds are coming for Alexei tonight.” Nate leaned against the wall. The long hours he’d put in the last few days showed on his face.

Callie reached for his hand, and he pulled it up to his heart. The three of them were connected and content to be so. “They’ll take the bonds into evidence and clean out our makeshift morgue. Is our doctor staying, or did we run him off with our latest clusterfuck?” Max’s eyes came open, and he put a hand over his sleeping daughter’s head. “Will you watch your language, Sheriff? There is a child in the room.”

“Sorry. After the way I heard she came into the world, I didn’t suspect she would have delicate ears,” Nate shot back.

Rachel wasn’t at all embarrassed. “I did cuss a blue streak.”

“And threatened grievous bodily injury on me and Max,” Rye added.

“Well, I was in a touch of pain. But the next one, I doubt I’ll even go to the hospital. I’ll probably just squat, have the baby, and then get back to work. I’m like a pioneer woman. I don’t need a hospital. I’m only here because Caleb made me.”