“Here. Hold on to this counter.”
His reluctant agreement almost had her smiling in victory but she tamped it down, well aware a quick gloat wouldn’t sit well with a wounded—and decidedly alpha—male.
Satisfied he had his balance, she raced back to the front door and flipped the lock, then hit the light switch. Darkness flooded the room, leaving nothing but the eerie glow of the streetlamps outside, visible through the glass doors.
Had someone followed him? Who had shot him? And why was he here?
The questions tumbled over themselves, one after the other, even as something small and quiet and a lot like satisfaction whispered through her mind that she was pleased he’d come to her.
“Get a damn grip, chica. Hello. Highly suspicious gunshot wound.” She muttered the words to herself, well aware a call to the police would be a far better choice than helping the man with the enigmatic gaze.
And then she turned toward the silhouette she’d left at the bar and fought the light flutter in her belly. Knox didn’t appear to have moved. His large hands still clutched the edge of the thick stainless steel counter.
Khaki cargo pants hung low on his hips, while a stretch of gray cotton spread across his back. A large red stain marred his left shoulder, rapidly turning the T-shirt black in the darkened light.
“Can you walk?”
He lifted his head from where he stood stock-still, his gaze focused on the counter. “Yes. Bullet just nicked the flesh.”
The ice-blue eyes that had already done a solid number on her insides in their previous meetings had a glazed, unfocused look, and she knew he wasn’t nearly as good a judge of his condition as he should be.
Men.
To be fair, her reasoning seemed to have taken a sizeable detour, even as she cycled through her mental Rolodex. She could call her cousin, Isabella, who worked nights in the ER, to come take a look. The idea had merit—and Isabella was discreet—but something held her back.
Wrapping an arm around his waist, she pulled him close, careful to avoid pulling too quickly and forcing him off balance. “Do you have me?”
“Yes.”
“We need to get out of the front area here. Even with the lights off, we’re too easy to see through the windows.”
He nodded, the motion exaggerated enough to put pressure against her body as she forced him to walk.
“Easy. Step by step.”
“I shouldn’t—”
“Shhh. Focus on getting back to the kitchen.”
While her catering shop—a renovated warehouse in Dallas’s Design District—was sizable, the trek to her kitchen wasn’t anything she’d ever considered. Suddenly, the door to her kitchen—and safety—seemed a mile away.
Using the stubborn streak she’d honed since birth, she moved them forward. One foot. Then the other. They walked, slow and plodding, as she fought to maintain the press of his body and the increasing pull of shock and gravity that was determined to drop him to the floor.
The entire shop was maybe twenty yards from the front door to the back. Despite the relatively limited space, the distance to her industrial kitchen seemed interminable. Gabby cleared the two of them through the swinging door that acted as sentinel to her inner sanctum just as the screech of tires echoed in front of the building. “Damn it.”
“What?” Knox’s head tilted upward.
“I locked the door, but forgot to set the alarm.”
“You can’t go back out there.”
“I’ve got a keypad back here, but you’re weaker than you were. Can I leave you unsupported?”
He grunted at that—whether in acknowledgment or irritation, she wasn’t sure—before standing straighter. “Go. Now. I’ll be right behind you.”
Although that imperious tone usually set her teeth on edge, she ignored it in favor of expedience. And a funny sort of relief that he’d want the property armed.
Ignoring the odd mishmash of thoughts, Gabby hotfooted it to the back entrance and keyed in the code—her grandmother’s birthday—and prayed she wasn’t too late. The blinking green light that said all her doors and windows were closed flipped to red just as she slammed the last number into the keypad. Instantaneously, the piercing siren that accompanied a breach lit up the interior of the kitchen, growing louder as the stainless steel surfaces deflected the sound, pushing it back into the atmosphere like a living, breathing wall of energy.
She shoved Knox toward a large pantry, ignoring whatever cleanup would no doubt be involved in having a large man bleed all over her food before racing back toward the swinging door. She tipped it open slightly to view the outer room of the shop and could see a man fleeing down the front steps of her business, his large silhouette and strained gait highlighted by the streetlamps that lined Slocum Street.
“Is the bastard gone?”
Even with the unceasing clanging, Gabby heard the question. “Yes.”
“Then turn off the bloody alarm.”
For the second time in a span of moments, ire tickled the back of her neck at his imperious words and snappish orders. It was time to set things to rights. She stalked back to the alarm keypad and reset the code. The cell phone she’d left lying on the counter rang, and she snatched it up, answering the alarm company on the other end.
“No, I’m fine. False alarm.” She added the required password to confirm she wasn’t actually being held hostage and thanked the man on the other end.
“Beef enchilada is your password?”
Knox’s sultry voice held the unmistakable notes of pain, but she didn’t miss the veneer of humor underneath. “I make damn good enchiladas.”
“I curse myself for not sampling them. It’s still an odd password.”
“It’s as good as any other.” She shrugged and fought down the natural swell of concern working its way through her defenses. She might be the youngest child in a family of boys, but she had a damn fine mothering instinct.
Not that she’d put it to good use, of course. A fact her mother reminded her of on a near-daily basis. Especially since it had been two—no, three?—years since her last serious relationship.
Had it really been that long?
Gabby shook off the embarrassing answer, well aware it had been that long. She’d been so focused on getting her business off the ground, the ninety-hour weeks more joy than punishment, but her personal life had paid the price. Just that evening, in fact, her mother had reamed her out for not having a date to her cousin’s engagement party.
Shaking off the remembered conversation and the maudlin thoughts she’d spent far too much time dwelling in lately, Gabby sized him up. “Are you okay?”
“I’ve had worse.”
