I quickly slipped out of the gown and tugged my jeans and sweater back on. Steele was waiting for me at the counter, fending off the doe-eyed shop assistant as she giggled and flipped her hair.
Placing the dress on the counter, I gave her a tight smile. "I'll take this, please."
She looked at me in shock, blinking a couple of times like she was trying to remember what her job was. "Oh, yes. Sorry. Gosh, I'm so sorry, I need to take your measurements and place an order with the designer and—"
"No need," I assured her, cutting off her panicked babble with a tight smile. "This size is perfect."
She blinked a few more times. Maybe her job wasn't usually so easy?
"Okay, well, great! I'll get this ordered—"
"Actually," I cut her off with a smile, "the wedding is in six weeks, so can I just take this one?" She'd already mentioned that custom orders could take up to eight months to arrive. I had neither the time nor the patience for that. If we didn't take the offensive soon, I wouldn't be alive in eight months.
The shop assistant hurried to package my gown up in a garment bag, then process it through the register, all while shooting coy glances at Steele. He just leaned on the counter like he had all the time in the world, but the tightness to his eyes betrayed the fact that he was in pain.
After the dress had been charged to Archer's credit card, the girl handed the garment bag across the counter to me, then handed Steele a folded piece of paper.
"My number," she told him with a suggestive smile. Under any normal circumstances, that'd be pretty appalling behavior in a bridal shop. But seeing as Archer had been with me when I arrived and had kissed me possessively before leaving me in Wade's care? Yeah, I could understand why she assumed Steele was single.
Steele just frowned at the paper, though, then handed it back to her. "Thank you, but I'm taken." Before I could say anything—even if I had something to say—he slipped his arm around my waist and kissed my hair. "Ready to go, beautiful?"
I bit my lip to hold back my laugh, because the shop assistant looked like her brain was mid-explosion. "You bet." I tipped my head back, pressing a kiss to his lips, then leaving the store with his arm still tight around my waist.
Once outside, I groaned and shook my head. "That was mean; it takes a lot of confidence to give a guy your number." A stab of guilt hit me, and I glanced back at the bridal shop.
"Except I’d already told her three times in the five minutes you were taking the dress off that I wasn't interested. She just didn't want to hear it." He gave me a small shrug, but I was distracted by the bead of sweat on his temple.
"Max Steele," I said in a stern voice, "you're overdoing it. Is Wade getting the car?" I glanced around, not seeing my bodyguard anywhere nearby.
Steele sighed and nodded. "Yeah. Here he is now." His eyes shifted past me to where our blacked-out SUV was coming around the corner.
The vehicle pulled up right beside us, and my bodyguard hopped out of the driver's seat to open the back door for us. Not that I was incapable of doing this myself, but it was one of those things that the security guys insisted on.
"Oh shit," I cursed, pausing halfway into the car. "Sorry, I left my jacket in the fitting room. Two seconds?" I gave Wade an apologetic smile, but he just nodded.
"I'll come with you," Steele murmured, taking the dress bag from my hand as I hurried back into the store. It was standard Steele protectiveness, but in his current condition I'd be the one saving his ass if someone attacked us in the bridal store.
I was glad he did follow me, though. We’d barely made it two steps back inside the shop when an explosion rocked the ground beneath our feet. Steele threw himself at me, knocking me to the ground and covering my body with his as glass from the shattered storefront windows rained down all around us.
The whole thing was over in seconds, but my ears rang as Steele cautiously eased off me.
Several car sirens went off in the street, and I already knew what I was going to find before crawling to my knees to look.
"Fuck," I breathed, staring wide-eyed at the flaming shell of our SUV. The charred, mutilated remains of my bodyguard lay several feet away from the wreckage, and my stomach knotted up with guilt and anxiety.
"We need to get out of here," Steele told me, then grimaced as he pushed to his feet.
He offered me a hand to help me up, but I batted it aside and yanked his T-shirt up to check on his still-healing wound. It was seeping blood, like I expected, and fear travelled through me. He shouldn't be back in the middle of this already. He'd just taken a bullet to the chest two and a half weeks ago, thanks to my fucked-up life.
Steele pushed my hands away and smoothed his shirt back down. "Hellcat, I'm fine. But we need to go before someone realizes that you weren't in the car." He wrapped his hand around mine, stooped to grab my dress bag from where he'd dropped it, then led me quickly out of the shattered storefront.
We didn't hesitate even a second as we passed Wade's remains. Death was becoming all too familiar, these days, and Steele was my priority. I couldn't risk his life again so soon. I just fucking couldn't. So we hurried away from the burning car without a backward glance.
One thing was for sure, my killers were still out there. Even if my stalker had been mysteriously quiet these past few weeks, he wasn't my only problem.
Not by a long shot.
3
Kody and Archer were in the gym when we got back to the house and seemed just as shocked as I was to see Steele out of the hospital.
"Guys, give it a rest!" Steele exclaimed after they’d badgered him for a solid five minutes about the risks of early discharge. "My doctors cleared me, and I'm a grown-ass adult. I think I can make these choices myself." He glared at them both, then softened his gaze as he looked at me. "Besides, if I had to suffer through one more of those uncomfortable visits with nurses watching our every movement, I was going to lose my damn mind."
I bit my lip to hold back a smile, but I knew what he meant. We hadn't had a moment truly alone the whole time he was in hospital. There was always a nurse hovering around or a doctor needing to check notes, probably because fucking everyone in Shadow Grove seemed to be on the payroll of one gang or another. Undoubtedly, someone had seen the opportunity to listen for valuable information.
"Okay, if you're such a grown-ass adult," Kody challenged him, folding his arms over his bare chest, "explain why there's blood on your T-shirt. Huh? You couldn't even make it from the hospital to home without ripping stitches?"
Heading through to the kitchen, Steele rolled his eyes and flipped Kody off. "I got my stitches out a week ago, dickhead."
"Also, that wasn't his fault," I added, handing my dress bag to Steinwick, who’d appeared out of the dining room. The elderly butler took it silently, and I knew he'd see it safely stored in my closet.
"Why do I get the feeling you two have been causing trouble today?" Archer muttered, taking one of the beers that Steele pulled from the fridge. "And where's Wade? The security detail is supposed to check in when you get back."