The Christmas Target

That kind of made Stella proud.

She loved her family. Even Eva.

“Okay, you can touch it,” she said, and her sister smiled with Daddy’s dark brown eyes, and then the world exploded in heat and flames and horrible screams.

She was screaming, too. Screaming and screaming, her throat raw, her head pounding. Someone calling her name over and over again.

Stella woke with a start, bathed in sweat, pain throbbing somewhere so deep inside she wasn’t sure where it came from or how to get rid of it.

“Shhhhh,” someone said, hands brushing across her cheeks, wiping away the tears that always came with the Christmas dream.

Christmas nightmare.

She took a deep, shuddering breath, realized she was hooked to something. An IV?

Was she in the hospital?

Suddenly the fog cleared, and she knew where she was, what had happened.

“Nana!” She shoved aside blankets, tried to get to her feet, but those hands—the warm, rough ones that had wiped her tears—were on her shoulders, holding her still.

“Slow down, Stella.”

Chance.

She should have known, should have recognized the hands, the deep voice.

“Where’s my grandmother?” she asked.

“In ICU. Stable.” He was leaning over her, his dress shirt unbuttoned at the neck, his tie dangling loose, his gaze steady and focused.

He was the most handsome man she’d ever seen, the kindest man she’d ever known. She tried really hard not to think about that when they were working together.

Right now, they weren’t working.

For a moment, it was just the two of them, looking into each other’s eyes, everything else flying away. If she let herself, she could drift into sleep again, let herself relax knowing that Chance was there. She wouldn’t let herself. Her grandmother needed her.

Stable. That’s what Chance had said.

It was a good word, but she wanted more. Like conscious, talking. Fine.

“I need to see her.”

“You’re in no shape to go anywhere or see anyone.”

“I’m seeing you,” she retorted, sitting up a little too quickly. Pain jolted through her skull, and she would have closed her eyes if she hadn’t been afraid she’d be in the nightmare again.

“You’re funny, Stella. Even when your skull is cracked open,” he responded, his hand on her back. He smelled like pine needles and snow, and she realized that his shirt was damp, his hair mussed.

Not perfect Chance anymore.

Except that he was—the way he was supporting her weight, looking into her eyes, teasing her because he probably knew she needed the distraction. All of it was perfect, and that made it really hard to remember all the reasons why she and Chance hadn’t worked out.

All the reasons?

She could only really think of one—she’d been a coward, too afraid of being disappointed to risk her heart again.

She shoved the covers off, turned so her feet were dangling over the side of the bed. She was wearing a hospital gown. Of course. Her feet bare, her legs speckled with mud and crisscrossed with scratches. She could have died out in the woods. If Chance hadn’t shown up, she probably would have.

If she’d died, what would have happened to Beatrice? She knew the answer. Beatrice would have died, too.

It didn’t make sense.

The town she’d grown up in was quiet and cozy. Movie theaters, shopping centers, a bowling alley and an ice-skating rink. The nice-sized hospital she was in had been built in the sixties and had a level one trauma center. People hiked and biked and ran, and they generally died of old age or disease. Not murder.

She frowned.

Was that what all this had been? Attempted murder? It didn’t seem possible. Not in Boonsboro. Trouble didn’t happen there. At least, not the kind that took people’s lives. Not usually. Not often. One of the worst things that had ever happened in town was the accident that had killed Stella’s family. It had been the worst tragedy since the old Harman house had gone up in flames at the turn of the nineteenth century. Four children died in the fire. Two adults. The grave plot was still tended by someone in the family, but Stella had never paid much attention to it. She’d had her own family to mourn, her own graves to tend.

She shoved the thought and the memory away, pushed against the mattress and tried to stand. Failed.

“Need some help?” Chance slid his arm around her waist, and she was up on her feet before she realized she was moving.

The room was moving, too, spinning around her, making her sick and woozy. Maybe Chance was right. She wasn’t in any shape to go anywhere.

In for a penny. In for a pound.

That’s what her grandfather had always said.

She was already standing. She might as well try to walk.

She took a step, realized she was clutching something. Chance’s belt, her fingers digging into smooth leather, her shoulder pressing into his side. He was tall and solid, not an ounce of fat on his lean, hard body. He could hold her weight easily, but she tried to ease back, stand on her own two feet, because it’s what she’d always done. Even when she was married. Even when she should have been able to rely on someone else, she’d taken care of herself, handled her own business, stood alone more than she’d stood beside Daniel.

“There is no way you’re going to make it. You know that, right?” Chance said.

“Sure I am.” She grabbed hold of the IV pole and took a step to prove him wrong. Took another one to prove to herself that she could do it. Her legs wobbled, but she didn’t fall. She made it to the door and put her hand on the jamb for support, the hospital gown slipping from one shoulder.

Chance hitched it back into place, and she knew his fingers must be grazing the scars that stretched from her collarbone to her shoulder blade. She didn’t feel his touch. The scars were too thick for that, the skin too damaged.

His gaze dropped to the spot where his fingers had been, and she knew he wanted to ask. Not how she’d gotten them. He knew the answer to that. He did background checks on every HEART operative. No, he wouldn’t ask how she’d gotten them. He’d ask if they hurt, if there was something he could do to take the pain away, if the memories were as difficult to ignore as the thick webbed flesh.

He’d asked those things before, and he’d told her how beautiful she was. Not despite the scars. Because of them. They made her who she was, and he wanted to know more about how they defined her.

She hadn’t answered the questions, because getting close to someone meant being hurt when they left. She’d been hurt enough for one lifetime, and she didn’t want to be hurt again. If that made her a coward, so be it.

“How about I get you a wheelchair?” Chance said, his breath tickling the hair near her temple, his hands on her shoulders. Somehow, he was in front of her, blocking the doorway, and she wasn’t even sure how it had happened.

She was worse off than she’d thought.